The Oprah Winfrey Show

The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American nationally syndicated talk show, hosted and produced by Oprah Winfrey.

It is the longest running daytime television talk show in the United States, with 20 seasons and thousands of episodes since it debuted on September 8, 1986. The show has now been renewed for a twenty-fifth season, which will be broadcast in 2011.

Oprah, as it is often referred to, has been seen by many critics as one of the finest television talk shows ever; it was included in Time magazine's shortlist of the best television series of the twentieth century in 1998, and it made the top 50 of TV Guide's countdown of the greatest shows of all time ^* in 2002.

The show is highly influential, especially upon women, and many of its topics penetrate into American pop-cultural consciousness. While early episodes of show followed a Phil Donahue-style exploration of sensationalistic social issues, Oprah eventually transformed her series into a more positive, spiritually uplifting experience marked by book clubs, celebrity interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events.

Early years

In 1983, Oprah Winfrey relocated to Chicago, Illinois to host the local ABC affiliate WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk show, AM Chicago. The first episode aired on January 2, 1984. The show was an instant success, garnering higher ratings than national rival Phil Donahue. Renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, the show expanded to a full hour and began broadcasting nationally in syndication as from September 8, 1986.

Unable to attract a big-name guest for her national premiere, the first show was instead entitled "How To Marry The Man Or Woman Of Your Choice" and featured relationship advice. Nevertheless, the format proved instantly popular and its extraordinary success has led it to be broadcast in dozens of countries.

The show ran the gamut from makeovers and fashion tips to more heavyweight topics such as racism and sexual abuse, interspersed with Oprah's self-confessional revelations about that day's particular topic. For example, in a heated exchange on the phone, Oprah branded a child molester a "slime", with much applause from the studio audience.

Unlike today, Oprah hosted the show amidst the studio audience, offering the public the chance to offer their views on the chosen topic alongside Winfrey's running commentary.

Oprah occasionally took the show on the road and on the two instances she did, the show evoked public controversy. In 1987, Winfrey visited Forsyth County, Georgia, where, at the time, no Black person had lived for 75 years. Black Civil Rights activists protested outside the studio, criticising the show of an ethnocentric bias by only allowing the White residents to present their views. A few months later, in an episode entitled "AIDS In West Virginia", a young man talked about how he felt ostracised by his community when he visited a swimming pool after contracting the AIDS virus.

Airing in more than 190 American cities, by 1987 the show was named the most popular in syndication after Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, which like Oprah are syndicated by King World.

The trash television phenomenon

Because of the success of Winfrey's show, contemporaries like Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Maury Povich, Montel Williams, Geraldo Rivera, and Ricki Lake revamped their shows in a quest for higher ratings, each trying to outdo the other by moving towards increasingly controversial guests and theatricality, sparking Newsweek's characterization of the "Trash TV phenomenon"

The search for higher ratings and greater advertising revenue led Oprah towards tawdry and provocative topics, becoming more successful as the show turned more lowbrow (although even then it successfully focused on more sensitive and less sensational issues). Guests included neo-Nazi skinheads, polygamous men and their partners, and Black and Jewish activists. By the fourth season, a show was dedicated to guests who claimed they had seen Elvis Presley alive, with one man claiming he talked to the singer in a Burger King.

Oprah's best friend Gayle King said during an A&E profile on Winfrey in 2003 that when they looked back at an episode list of the first six seasons, Oprah could not believe she used to host such provocative shows. With titles such as "I'm a Cross-Dresser" and "Priestly Sins", King believed the topics "didn't seem so sleazy when Oprah did them".

According to Yale sociologist Joshua Gamson, the tabloid talk show genre popularized by Oprah in 1986 provided much-needed media visibility for gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transgender people ^*. This media counter-culture helped make sexual noncomformists mainstream and socially acceptable. By the start of the 21st century, gays were coming out of the closet younger and younger, gay suicide rates had dropped, and gays were embraced on mainstream shows like Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and films like Brokeback Mountain.

Remember Your Spirit

In 1994 Oprah's original contract to host seven seasons had expired and she contemplated leaving the show to concentrate on her fledging movie career. Instead, she decided to continue the program up until the 2000-2001 season, but insisted that the show's focus should be shifted from controversial and attention-grabbing topics to a more uplifting and informative agenda. She announced, "The time has come for this genre of talk shows to move on from dysfunctional whining and complaining and blaming."

Towards the late-1990s the shows adopted a more serious format, addressing issues that Winfrey thought were of importance to women, such as infidelity, child abuse, poverty, and cosmetic surgery.

The new format proved successful, leading to a number of copycat shows such as The View. Professional model Tyra Banks, who premiered her own syndicated talk show in 2005, is arguably the best example of a show based on Oprah's new style. Ironically, Banks served as a segment correspondent for two years, fueling rumors that Winfrey was grooming Banks to be her successor.

To allow more time with guests to cover important issues seen on her talk show, Oprah After the Show was launched on the Oxygen Network as an intended follow-up to the syndicated program.

Theme

You can hear Oprah's hitherto unproven pipes on "Run on with Oprah," written by Buck Stewart in collaboration with the show's producers. With her new recording, Oprah joins a pretty impressive list of singers who have performed an Oprah theme: Patti LaBelle's "Get with the Program" was the song of choice for the past two seasons, Paul Simon's "Ten Years" themed the anniversary season and Whitney Houston's "I'm Every Woman" served as the soundtrack before that.

Wildest dreams

One of the show's features in recent years has been the "Wildest Dreams" tour, which fulfills the dreams of many deserving people reported to her producers by friends and family, be the dream a new house, an encounter with a favourite performer, or a guest role on a popular TV show.

During her nineteenth season premiere (fall 2004), Oprah surprised her entire audience by giving them each a Pontiac G6. It was named as one of the greatest television moments in history by TV Guide. Although Oprah may be given credit for giving the cars away, they were donated to her by Pontiac by means of a publicity stunt. Plus, many audience members correctly assumed that the cars came with taxes to pay to the government, despite the staff proclaiming that the cars were free. Another highlight was in 2005 when Tina Turner guest starred, allowing Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman to fulfil her Wildest Dream of singing back up to the Queen of Rock herself (in addition, Ena Scott, a lifelong Tina Turner fan got sent to Tina's home in Zurich, Switzerland to hang out with her). Another included a man named David Caruso (not the former NYPD Blue and current Miami star), who lost 300 pounds thanks to emergency surgery after weighing 525 pounds from eating too much junk food. He came on the show in 2003 and told Oprah that one of his wishes was to sit in a Porsche. Minutes later, a white 2004 Porsche Boxster S (worth about $63,000) entered the stage. He immediately sat in the driver's seat upon cheers from the audience. Later, Oprah told him the car was his. He cried, the audience cheered, and confetti fell from the studio ceiling. Oprah also named this one of her 20 favorite moments on a special DVD set.

Interviews

Winfrey has conducted interviews with a plethora of political and public figures during the past twenty years. In the earlier seasons of the show, rather than offering a simple publicity platform, a celebrity would often feature after a period of intense media scrutiny, such was the case when the model Naomi Campbell appeared after there were claims she had a substance abuse problem. She often interviews celebrities on issues that directly involve them in some way, such as cancer or charity work. Guests that Oprah has interviewed include Tina Turner, Britney Spears, Muhammad Ali, President George W. Bush, Queen Rania, Mariah Carey, Bono, Cher, Hilary Clinton, Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, John F. Kennedy Jr., Madonna, Paul McCartney, Nelson Mandela, Lisa Marie Presley, Whitney Houston, Destiny's Child, Beyoncé, Diana Ross, Sarah, Duchess of York, Elie Wiesel, Shania Twain and Stevie Wonder. In 1995, Winfrey revealed to Time Magazine that she hoped to conduct the first-ever interview with Princess Diana sometime during the eleventh season. Diana, who was then arguably the most famous woman in the world, instead gave an interview to the British television newsmagazine Panorama.

Winfrey claims her worst interviewing experience was when she met Elizabeth Taylor in the fourth season. The actress refused to talk about her marriages and current relationship, leading to a number of awkward silences. Taylor later apologised for her behaviour and re-appeared on the show a year later, seemingly much happier.

Much to her chagrin, one of the most repeated and heavily discussed clips is that of Oprah's interview with Tom Cruise, which was broadcast on May 23, 2005. Cruise — in the words of The New York Times — "jumped around the set, hopped onto a couch, fell rapturously to one knee and repeatedly professed his love for his new girlfriend." This scene quickly became part of American pop-cultural discource and was heavily parodied in media as diverse as Saturday Night Live and the film Scary Movie 4. See "jumping the couch" for more information.

Non-celebrity guests usually feature a person who has accomplished an heroic action or has been involved in an extraordinary situation. Examples of these include an episode in the fourth season which featured Truddi Chase, a woman with severe Multiple Personality Disorder as a result of being violently and sexually abused at the age of two. After introducing Chase, who was there to promote her book When The Rabbit Howls, Oprah unexpectedly broke down in tears whilst reading the telepromoter, relating her own childhood molestation to that of the guest. Unable to control herself, Winfrey repeatedly asked producers to stop filming.

Regular segments

"Oprah's Book Club": In this monthly segment, Oprah highlights a book and often interviews the author of the selected title. Because of the book club's wide popularity, many obscure titles have become popular bestsellers, increasing sales by as many as a million copies at the height of the book club's popularity. Winfrey suspended her book club in 2002, but brought it back in 2003; the format was shifted, the focus on classic works of literature, starting with East of Eden. In September 2005, she announced a return to her old practice of choosing new titles, with her selection of the now-controversial A Million Little Pieces, written by James Frey.

"What's The Buzz": Frequently Oprah introduces an up-and-coming public figure who has been generating industy "buzz" but has yet to be exposed to the mainstream. Those who have featured in What's The Buzz have included Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx. When singer James Blunt appeared during this segment, his album sales increased dramatically, climbing up to number two on the Billboard 200, his highest position thus far. Several media commentators have labelled this phenomenon The Oprah Effect.

"Remember Your Spirit"

"Oprah's Favorite Things": This segment usually airs during the holiday shopping season or at the beginning of spring. In this segment she shows items to her audience that she really likes and gives them away to the audience. Also usually the audience for that show is filled with a certain group of people, for example for Oprah's 2005 Christmas Favorite Things she had Hurricane Katrina volunteer workers in the audience.

"Tuesdays With Dr Phil": In 1996 Oprah Winfrey hired "Relationship and Life Strategy Expert" Dr. Phil McGraw to prepare her for her trial in Amarillo, Texas in which she was accused of intentionally defaming the U.S. beef industry. Winfrey credited him for her victory in that case and soon after, he made weekly appearances on her show, tackling human issue topics such as weight loss, financial planning and errant children. One episode saw a grieving woman who could not overcome the death of her daughter and revealed that she had planned to kill herself after the show.

Dr. Phil's Tuesday slots, with running commentary from Oprah herself, quickly became a popular feature and in 2002 he was given his own syndicated daily TV show, produced by Winfrey's Harpo Studios. This segment no longer airs.

Other memorable moments

Oprah was moved to tears by the sight of her fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Mary Duncan, in 1989. She appeared just when Oprah read her name on the teleprompter.
In an emotionally charged episode, airing in 1997, Winfrey was moved to tears during a surprise appearance by Mary Tyler Moore, one of her childhood idols.
Oprah and Gayle King "go back in time" when they lived for a day in a colony from the 1600s. With no make-up, toilet paper or underwear, the pair had to tend over farmyard animals and sleep in wooden huts.
A lonely woman told Oprah that she bought a pair of Oprah's shoes at an auction, so that whenever she feels upset, she could stand in Oprah's shoes.
Oprah surprised people at a McDonald's drive-through. She encountered a very rude customer, and when he drove up she recognized him as her attorney.

Criticism

While the show is generally revered for its commitment to highlighting international issues, Oprah's detractors accuse her show of having a liberal slant, often promoting gay and lesbian rights and the right to abortion. A controversial episode, which aired in 2005, saw guests discussing the sexual act "tossed salad", igniting criticism from both the Left and the Right. The FCC received a proliferation of complaints from angry parents whose children watched the show in an early-evening slot in many television markets.

Trivia

Patti LaBelle has made the most guest appearances on the show.
The highest-rated episode is entitled "The Weight Wagon". Airing in 1988, Oprah wheeled out a wagon containing fat, representing the weight she had lost.
Since the show went national in 1986, it still remains at 9:00am in the Chicago television market despite offers from other TV stations to air the program in the late afternoon as it does in most markets. Winfrey stated during an interview with WLS-TV that she wants the show to remain at 9:00am in Chicago because it is the Chicago 9:00 morning audience that made the show a success that got it launched in national syndication. WLS-TV also airs the show at 11:05pm pushing back the ABC network broadcast of Jimmy Kimmel to 12:05am.

International

The show is also "popular" outside the USA. Oprah holds the distinction of being the program broadcast on the largest number of British television stations. It currently resides on the satellite network ITV2, but was previously aired, at one time or another, on BBC2, Channel 4, Five, Sky One and Living TV.

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