If we are to believe America’s small-screen bible, TV Guide, one of the “greatest moments in television history”, occurred on September 13, 2004, when an over-excited talk-show host went whirling like a dervish amid her studio audience shrieking: “You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!”
It was the opening episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show’s nineteenth season and even back then, the title of Daytime Television Queen was beginning to feel inadequate for Oprah. For her millions of fans, the very name brought positive energy. Oprah wasn’t just a celebrity any more, she was a state of being.
And that day her devotees got their “loaves and fishes” moment. Oprah kick-started the season premiere by revealing to her 276 live audience members that they would each receive a $30,000 Pontiac G6 sports sedan.
Even in America, where hysterical audience behaviour on shows like The Price Is Right is a requirement of entry, the reaction in the studio to Oprah’s bombshell was extraordinary. There was pandemonium.
They screamed, they wept, they embraced. Some leapt in the air, some sat down in disbelief, some prayed to Jesus. And that wasn’t the only similarity to an old-style revival meeting. Someone shouted: “Oprah, you’re beautiful!” Another added: “On the inside!” And then came: “We’re blessed!”
In a $7 million orgy of generosity, Oprah had turned up the wattage on her halo to full-strength and was surely just one step away from becoming a Deity in her own right.
But let’s strip aside the religious fervor for a moment, shall we. Anyone who’s worked in the television industry recognized the car giveaway for exactly what it was: a common, garden-variety stunt. Having worked at all three Australian commercial networks over 25 years I’ve seen or been actively involved in similar blatant hyperbole albeit on a smaller scale. But whether you’re handing over Pontiacs or giving out bingo numbers in your news service, the only higher power TV stunts are designed to appease, is the all-powerful god of ratings.
Oprah’s car giveaway came at a time when her strangle-hold on America’s day-time ratings was weakening. As a 20-year veteran of American network television, she knew she had to pull a very large rabbit out of her syndicated hat
So she’d hyped her loyal viewers to “expect a surprise” and in doing so, managed to let slip it was “so big”, paramedics would be on stand-by in the studio. The buzz did its job and the show delivered good numbers. But contrary to common assumption, Oprah didn’t dip into her own $2.7 billion fortune to pay for the cars. General Motors footed the bill. Even then, the lucky “winners” had to fork out $7,125 in state and federal taxes to cover their “prize”. And though the programme made it appear they all drove home from the Oprah car park in their sparkling new vehicles, for many, delivery didn’t happen until many months later.
But those mere mortal details were swept aside by the mythology that has grown around Oprah.
Such is the power of Oprah; capable of elevating the everyday to the evangelistic, make corporate marketing sound like the Hallelujah chorus, saving the world one audience gift pack at a time.
As we prepare for the onslaught of the Oprah juggernaut, courtesy of yet another stunt (this time sponsored by Qantas) perhaps it’s worth analyzing this one-woman phenomenon a little more closely. And best we do it now, before the light hits our shores and we’re mesmerized by her blinding aura.
She is, without doubt, the most successful talk show host in history. The Oprah Winfrey Show, produced by her own company, Harpo, attracts up to seven million viewers a day and when sold worldwide to more than 100 countries, generates $300 million a year for distributor, King World. Two women before her – Lucille Ball and Mary Pickford - have run their own production studios, but Oprah will be the first to have her own network when the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), being created in conjunction with Discovery, kicks off next year.
She was the first black woman to make Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America. She’s been nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. In 1991, she initiated The National Child Protection Act and testified before the United States Senate to establish a national database of convicted child abusers. As a result, the national “Oprah Bill” was signed into law. She’s been named by Newsweek as the “Most Important Person” in media and by Time magazine as one of the “25 Most Influential People” in America. And she’s been honoured with America’s most prestigious broadcasting prize, the George Foster Peabody Award.
Television treasure, she may be, but by any measure, Oprah Winfrey is a remarkably average television and interviewer. Her daily output is the pop-culture equivalent of warm porridge. She makes you feel all warm inside, but adds little to the world’s collective knowledge with observation or insight. Her show is designed to soothe the majority and offend nobody. Oprah treads the well-worn path of pop psychology, inspiring her flock to “be the best you can”, but never reaches far from a small collection of clichéd sentiments and claims no qualifications beyond a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tennessee State University. Yet, Oprah is the anointed arbiter of America’s cultural values.
Am I the only quizzical finger in the crowd? Oprah a television personality, people and Television is about three things: perception, perception and perception. Employing tried-and-tested television techniques, Oprah has created an entirely new genre of feel-good entertainment and built an empire upon it. With her real life rags-to-riches background, she embodies her own ethos: that if you believe in yourself, you can do ANYTHING! And good for her. But the power of positive thinking is hardly a new concept.
Why on earth does Oprah Winfrey appear to have more immediate public influence in the world today than most of our political or religious leaders? One word from the big “O” can make or break entire industries. She single-handedly restructured US publishing when her monthly recommendations in the Oprah book club invariably shot to the top of the bestseller list. In 1996, when she stated her fear of Mad Cow Disease had: “stopped me cold from eating another burger”, Texas cattle ranchers sued her for libel, claimed the remark sent cattle prices tumbling and cost beef producers $12 million. Oprah won the case of course. She always wins.
She has the power to make winners too. When Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for governor of California, and faced accusations of groping and marital infidelity, Oprah invited the Terminator and his wife, Maria Shriver, onto the couch. It was a cosy chat, possibly because Shriver and Oprah are good friends. The controversies weren’t mentioned. Instead, America learned all about the couple’s “amazing children” And before your could say “You get a Governorship”, Schwarzenegger was in charge of LaLa Land.
Higher up the political ladder, Oprah made no secret of her support for Barack Obama in the lead up to his election. She featured him twice on the show prior to the announcement that he was running for President. “Oprah, you’re my girl,” he told her. And why wouldn’t she be, with the single largest female audience in the United States?
Oprah once told USA Today: “Sometimes, I’m in awe of my own life. Just really in awe. Because, I keep thinking, 1954 Mississippi. Who would have thought? Nobody could have imagined.”
She was referring to the year and place of her birth. And back then, not even she could have imagined. Born into extreme poverty in rural Mississippi to unmarried teenage parents, she was actually named Orpah, a biblical name from the Book of Ruth. But her family and neighbors transposed the R and the P when pronouncing and writing her name and eventually, it became Oprah.
She has often told the story of how she was nicknamed “Sack Girl” because of the hessian overalls she wore for a large part of her childhood, crafted by her mother out of a potato sack. She was molested at various stages by a number of her male relatives. At 14, she gave birth to a stillborn son.
But as she got older, the young Oprah dreamed of performing. She took drama and speech classes and through a public speaking competition, won a scholarship to university where she embarked on a Communications and Performing Arts degree. She dabbled in reading radio bulletins and at 19, took a job co-anchoring the TV news at the local CBS affiliate. Even Oprah admits she wasn’t very good. She found the news too serious and would sometimes get a fit of the giggles, mid-bulletin.
But in January 1984, she was offered a low-rating half-hour morning talk show, AM Chicago. Oprah had found her niche and her career began a whole new trajectory. Within months, she became a ratings sensation, leapfrogging the then-uncontested king of daytime, Phil Donahue. By 1986, the programme had been expanded, renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show and syndicated nationally.
But let’s stop for a moment, shall we, and recall the Oprah of the mid-eighties? The lady with the big hair and even bigger shoulder-pads bore little resemblance in appearance or tone to the positive, life-affirming humanitarian we see today. To topple the tabloid competition of the day - the likes of Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael and Jerry Springer – “Eighties-Oprah” rolled up her puffy sleeves, headed straight for the nearest trailer-park, rounded up some rednecks and took on her rivals at their own game: Tabloid Trash. One of her very first national episodes was called Releasing Your Inner Sexpot. Later, she devoted an entire show to dredging through salacious claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse in which her guests described devil-worshipping ceremonies in which they sacrificed new-born babies. She dealt in gutter-level fodder of the lowest order. My Life Is a Lie. Wives Who Abuse Husbands. Husbands With Double Lives. Not a redeeming, life-affirming homily to be heard. It must be said, that once she’d seen off the rest of the chat-show pack and was light years ahead in the ratings, Oprah did set about transforming her programme, steering it towards positive subject-matter and, for the most part, avoiding extreme tabloid fodder. (The 2009 appearance of a woman, who’s face had been ripped off by a rampaging chimpanzee being one notable lapse.) The television viewer side of me would like to believe that, from the very start, she set out with a cunning plan to infiltrate daytime television and give it an Amazing Self-affirming Oprah Makeover. But my cynical television producer side, wonders if the move was even more calculated and suspects that Oprah believed all along that women-friendly psychobabble was the key to huge audiences and massive ratings figures. If so, Oprah is far more skilled as a television programmer, than a television presenter. Wherever the truth lies, the combination of Oprah’s “Gosh-I-dunno. I’m-just-like-you-folks-at-home” presenting style and her philosophies of self-belief that sometimes seem to ripped straight from a desk calendar, delivered daytime-TV gold. Oprah quickly became the go-to girl for the most sought after interview subjects of the last two decades. Ellen came out as a lesbian on Oprah’s couch. Michael Jackson sat a little uncomfortably on it to tell 36.5 million viewers he wasn’t a child molester, but he did have a skin condition that turned him white. And Tom Cruise famously jumped on it as he, simultaneously, declared his love for Katie Holmes and obliterated his film career. Everyone talks to Oprah. I mean, wouldn’t you. Especially if you happen to be a disgraced or troubled celebrity in search of redemption. Firstly, if you win over Oprah, you’ve won over America. Whatever your indiscretion, it can be sanitized on Oprah’s confessional couch. And secondly, you know Oprah won’t actually come straight out and hit you with that really hard question; the very question that has made you the sought-after interview subject of the moment. She might bring up the topic. She might mention what “everyone is saying” about the question. She may ask you what you think about the question. But she won’t ask it. And once it’s been “discussed” and you’ve humbly spoken of the bitter life lesson you’ve learned, how you’ve grown as a person and how you’re now a better/father/husband/wife/mother/cosmetic surgeon, you’ll be safely into the commercial break and free to plug your latest film/book/TV series in the next segment. I’m being uncharitable I know. Something of which Oprah can never be accused. At last count, she’d given away more than $250m of her fortune, supporting everything from university scholarships for black Americans to Hurricane Katrina relief donations, to education and health funding for Africa. But does that make her more deserving of devotion than any other television performer who knows their audience and delivers the goods. Should Stephen Fry be treated like a visiting head of state? Should NSW tax dollars be showered on the protection of Larry David when next he visits Sydney? Can anyone see where I’m pointing? Or am I just a cynical old television hack who doesn’t get the Oprah Magic, because I don’t believe?
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