Rosie Perez To Exit ‘The View’

After only four months on “The View,” Rosie Perez is leaving the ABC morning show, sources have confirmed.

Perez had taken off the month of January to appear in the Broadway play “Fish in the Dark,” but it’s understood that she won’t be coming back to the Hot Topics table once she’s done. It’s unclear when ABC will announce her departure, but for now “View” producers have been trying other younger co-hosts in her seat.

After declining steadily for a few years, ratings for “The View” have stabilized in its 18th season with new co-hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Nicolle Wallace joining moderator Whoopi Goldberg; the show is on par with last year in total viewers and down a bit in key demos. Perez was handpicked by the show’s new executive producer Bill Wolff as a last-minute choice after the show underwent a reinvention this past summer after the retirement of Barbara Walters.

The choice of Perez was a surprise given the other contenders that were in the mix last year. But Perez never got a hang of the show’s mixture of hard and soft news, and she had trouble reading from a TelePrompTer, insiders say.

In October, “The View” moved from ABC Daytime to a special production unit of ABC News. But the shift in management hasn’t resulted in any improvement in “View” ratings. More changes in staffing — both behind and in front of the camera — are said to be in the works.