Here’s Lisa’s ‘View’

Having covered Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s coronation as the newest co-host of “The View,” I thought I’d track down Lisa Ling, who left the show last December, to see if she has any words of advice for her successor.

Here’s Lisa’s [good-natured] take on how Elisabeth should handle her new co- hosts:

* Joy Behar: “Don’t speak until she gets the punchline out.”

* Star Jones: “If you’re doing anything with Star, do not be even one second late.”

* Meredith Vieira: “If you have a dinner date with her, you can bet she’ll cancel if one of her kids has so much as a scrape on the elbow.”

* Barbara Walters: “Remember, it’s ’20/20,’ 24/7.”

“Elisabeth seems like a very sweet girl,” Ling said. “My advice is for her to just have a great time. The ladies are terrific – but don’t be afraid to express your opinions. You have to get ‘in there’ as much as possible. It’s difficult – these are women with a lot to say, but they’ll respect you more if you are as forceful with your opinion as you can be.”

Ling, who’s now hosting “National Geographic Ultimate Explorer,” which airs Sundays on MSNBC, said she’s having a blast. She’s working on a piece for “Dateline” about the SS Republic, a ship that sank off the coast of Georgia after the Civil War – reportedly with $100 million in gold coins aboard. “We’re going to be going down about 1,600 feet and using some of the most advanced diving devices, which should be an interesting experience,” she said.

Ling laughed off reports that have her possibly anchoring a 9 p.m. studio show on MSNBC early next year. “Really? I’m surprised to hear that,” she said. “I may be interested in doing a studio-based show one day. I don’t know what the appetite for international stories is . . . but when I come back to America for a week, I’m so anxious to get back on the road again. I really love being immersed in this.”