Barbara Walters Announces Retirement: 'This Is What I Want To Do' (VIDEO)

Barbara Walters officially announced her upcoming retirement on Monday's edition of "The View."

Walters said on Sunday that she would be leaving television next year, but the first time people actually saw the word "retire" escape her lips was on Monday's show. After a video package that recapped her iconic career, as well as several standing ovations, Walters addressed the viewers.

"I have been on television continuously for over 50 years, but in the summer of 2014, a year from now, I plan to retire from appearing on television at all," she said. "It has been an absolutely joyful, rewarding, challenging, fascinating and occasionally bumpy ride. 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."

She said she may "come back" for special occasions, but that she was vacating the field for the next generation of journalists--especially, she said, for women.

"It's their time now," she said.

Virtually every major executive from ABC and ABC News was in attendance for the announcement, and Walters' longtime friend Michael Bloomberg also came on the show to toast her career.