Regis Philbin Announces Retirement

Eternal television host Regis Philbin, 79, announced his retirement this morning after 28 years with The Morning Show.

"This will be my last year on this show ... but there is a time, there is a time that everything needs to come to an end for certain people on camera, especially certain old people," Philbin said. The show, now in its 22nd year in national syndication, began as a local morning show in New York in 1983. Kathie Lee Gifford joined Philbin in 1985 on the show and it debuted three years later nationally as "Live with Regis & Kathie Lee." Gifford left the show in 2000 and Philbin was joined by current co-host Kelly Ripa in 2001. A choked-up Ripa said Tuesday after Philbin's announcement, "I think I can only speak for America and all of us here when I say that it has been a pleasure and a privilege and a dream come true, and I wish I could do something to make you change your mind."

Philbin is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having spent more hours on television that any human in history. Morning television will never be the same.