|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Oprah Winfrey Show (also known as Oprah) is an American nationally syndicated talk show, hosted and produced by Oprah Winfrey and is the highest-rated talk show in American television history.[1] It is the longest-running daytime television talk show in the United States, with 20 seasons - currently in its 21st season - 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.
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 yearsImage:Oprahfirst.jpg Oprah on the first national broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986. In 1983, Oprah Winfrey relocated from Baltimore to Chicago to host ABC-owned WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk show, AM Chicago. The first episode with Winfrey as host 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 via King World Productions on 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 success has led it to be broadcast in dozens of countries.
Unlike in later seasons, 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 HIV. 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 Productions, which is now a subsidiary of the CBS Corporation. The "trash TV 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 provocative topics. 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 longtime 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 as "I'm a Cross-Dresser" and "Priestly Sins", King believed the topics "didn't seem so sleazy when Oprah did them". Yale sociology professor Joshua Gamson credits the tabloid talk show genre with providing much needed high impact media visibility for gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transgender people and doing more to make them mainstream and socially acceptable than any other development of the 20th century. In the book's editorial review Michael Bronski wrote "In the recent past, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people had almost no presence on television. With the invention and propagation of tabloid talk shows such as Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Oprah, and Geraldo, people outside the sexual mainstream now appear in living rooms across America almost every day of the week."[2] Remember Your SpiritIn 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 similar shows such as The View. ThemeOprah herself is heard on "Run on with Oprah", written by Buck Stewart in collaboration with the show's producers. A number of singers 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 dreamsImage:Cargiveaway.JPG Oprah Winfrey during her car giveaway to the entire audience. One of the show's features in recent years has been the "Wildest Dreams" tour, which fulfills the dreams of 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. In 2005, Tina Turner guest starred, allowing Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman to fulfill her Wildest Dream of singing backup to Tina. Another included a man named David Caruso who lost 300 pounds after weighing 525 pounds. 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) was given to him. Oprah named this one of her 20 favorite moments on a special DVD set. InterviewsWinfrey has interviewed 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. Image:Oprah and michael.jpg Oprah Winfrey speaking with Michael Jackson on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Guests that Oprah has interviewed include: Faith Hill, Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Tyra Banks,Janet Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Colin Firth, Djimon Hounsou, Tina Turner, Beyoncé Knowles, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Muhammad Ali, President George W. Bush, former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Queen Rania, Mariah Carey, Bono, Cher, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, John F. Kennedy Jr, Jon Bon Jovi, Madonna, Mary J. Blige, Paul McCartney, Pink (singer), Nelson Mandela, Aishwarya Rai, Lisa Marie Presley, A.J. McLean, Whitney Houston, Destiny's Child, Jello Biafra, Diana Ross, Sarah, Duchess of York, Elie Wiesel, Shania Twain, Karrine Steffans 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. Tom Cruise jumps ecstatically on Oprah's couch 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 discourse and was heavily parodied in media as diverse as Saturday Night Live, Family Guy and the film Scary Movie 4. David Letterman also, poked fun at the incident. 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 Multiple Personality Disorder who reported being violently and sexually abused beginning at the age of two. After introducing Chase, who was there to promote her book When Rabbit Howls, Oprah unexpectedly broke down in tears whilst reading the teleprompter, relating her own childhood molestation to that of the guest. Unable to control herself, Winfrey repeatedly asked producers to stop filming.Regular segments
Other famous moments
CriticismWhile 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.[citation needed] A controversial episode, which aired in 2005 (though originally aired, to little apparent notice, in October 2003), saw guests discussing the sexual act "tossed salad", igniting criticism from apparent conservatives. The FCC received a proliferation of complaints from angry parents whose children watched the show in an early-evening slot in many television markets. However, most FCC correspondents were prodded to write by Howard Stern, a noteworthy target of the agency, as well as Jimmy Kimmel, in an attempt to expose an FCC double standard.[3][4] Trivia
International distribution
References The Oprah Winfrey Show is on in New Zealand week day on free to air on tv 3 at 2:00 to 3:00
See also
|
Sites |
Searched sites for "The Oprah Winfrey Show" |
|
No sites found. |
Sorry, no matching site records were found. |
Want your site listed here?
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Submit
your site |
|
Relevant quality search results and fast easy navigation throughout the
different sections of the site, make Americola.com |