Phil Donahue, long-running US talkshow host, has died at the age of 88.

The host of TV’s groundbreaking The Phil Donahue Show, which was later renamed Donahue, died after a long illness according to his family who confirmed the news to the Today Show. He was surrounded by loved ones.

Donahue hosted over 6,000 episodes and covered wide-ranging issues including alcoholism, abortion and incest and was seen as a pioneer of the audience participation format.

Oprah Winfrey paid tribute to him on Instagram: “There wouldn’t have been an Oprah Show without Phil Donahue being the first to prove that daytime talk and women watching should be taken seriously,” she wrote. “He was a pioneer. I’m glad I got to thank him for it.”

“We started locally in Dayton with two cameras and no stars – we could only afford to fly in two guests a week,” Donahue said in an interview with Winfrey. “We had no couches, no announcers, no band and folding chairs, no jokes. I wasn’t saying, ‘Come on down!’ We knew we were visually dull, so we had to go to issues – that’s what made us alive.

The Phil Donahue Show started in 1967 and entered national syndication in 1970 before being retitled Donahue in 1974.

Donahue introduced issues that divided Americans and led them to important conversations. The show once featured a filmed abortion which was the episode that the host claimed was the one that most local stations refused to air.

Politically he was associated with the Democratic candidate Ralph Nader, who became the most frequent guest on the show with Donahue campaigning for him in 2000.

He also spoke out on rights for women, people of colour and the LGBTQ+ community.

“Gayness is not a moral issue, yet no institution on earth has promoted homophobia more than the church,” he said. “That’s what’s so ironic about the scandal in the Catholic church.”

The final episode aired in 1996 and Donahue later hosted a show on MSNBC from 2002 to 2003. After the latter show was cancelled, a leaked internal memo had criticised it for being “a home for the liberal anti-war agenda” as Donahue opposed the US invasion of Iraq.

In 2006, Donahue was also co-director of the documentary Body of War, which followed a disabled Iraq war veteran.

Throughout his career he picked up 20 Emmy awards and was awarded the presidential medal of freedom this year by Joe Biden.

Former talkshow host Sally Jessy Raphael also paid tribute online. “This is a very sad day,” she wrote. “I admired Phil Donahue for so many reasons, and he was one of the finest broadcasters in American television. If there wasn’t a Phil, there would have never been a Sally. My thoughts & prayers go out to Marlo and their family.”

In 2002, Donahue told Winfrey: “I’m an American, just like you, and I am impressed with the Bill of Rights. I believe a woman’s home should be her castle. I believe that the separation of church and state makes both the church and the state stronger. And I believe in the privilege of conversations between attorneys and clients. People can yell at me, they can criticize me, they can call me names. But there’s one thing they can’t do: they can’t take away my flag.”