BARBARA WALTERS, 83, is ready to announce her retirement.
AP says she’ll hang it up May 2014.
The ENQUIRER was the first to announce her impending departure in the wake of her declining health over a year ago.
Walters will kick off her rocking chair days with a year’s worth of specials that will also see her bidding adieu to The View.
It is unclear if this recent development is a result of her recent head gash fall and elder chicken pox.
Babs' TV career launched in 1961 when she was hired as a writer for the "Today" show. She graduated quickly to on-air work and became the show's co-host before leaving in 1976 to become co-anchor of ABC's evening news with Harry Reasoner – the first woman to do so for a major television network.
Her dad was Lou Walters who ran the infamous NYC nightclub "The Layin Quarter" where the elite met to eat, booze and shmooze.
No official statement from Babs or the Alphabet Net YET.
