Barbara Walters announces her retirement in 2014, says 'a year from now I plan to retire from appearing on television at all'.

Barbara Walters, the American news woman which South African viewers saw on SABC3 as one of the presenters on the female talk show The View she created as one of the executive producers, told viewers that she is retiring in 2014 exactly a year from now.

"I have been on television, continuously, for over 50 years," Barbara Walters just said on The View in America. "A year from now I plan to retire from appearing on television at all."

"It has been an absolute joyful, rewarding, challenging, fascinating and occasionally bumpy ride and I wouldn't change a thing," said Barbara Walters.

"I'm perfectly healthy. This is my decision. I've been thinking about it for a long time. And this is what I want to do. I will however continue as co-executive producer on The View," she said.

"There will be special occasions, and I will come back, I'm not walking into the sunset. But I don't want to appear on another programme, I don't want to climb another mountain, I want to instead sit in a sunny field and admire the very gifted women - and okay, some men too - who will be taking my place."

"I've had an amazing career," said Barbara Walters, "beyond what anyone could have imagined and I hope I have also inspired some other women to make television in front of or behind the cameras as a career."