The Bottom Line
Pros
- Influential
- Ground breaking
- Fun and unexpected
Cons
- Host can be self-righteous
- Audiences have come to expect gifts
- Topics can sometimes be pandering
Description
- Airs Monday through Friday in syndication, check local listings for times.
- Taped in Chicago.
- At 20 years, considered the longest running daytime talk show.
- Has been renewed through 2011, its 25th season.
- The show, one-hour long, uses the standard format of a studio audience in front of a raised set.
- Oprah’s Book Club makes instant bestsellers and celebrities out of the books and their authors.
- While working a drive-thru as part of a show, a rude customer turned out to be her attorney.
- Oprah is known for her bouts with weight gain and loss, a regular topic on the program.
- Oprah hosts a follow-up series Oprah After the Show that continues discourse from the first hour.
Guide Review - Overview: The Oprah Winfrey Show
Let’s just say it, “Oprah is all-powerful.” The way the one-time local Chicago newswoman has developed a career and television show that influences and inspires millions of people around the world is just amazing to behold. And to think at one time Oprah tread through Jerry Springer territory.
The show started out simple enough – a local Chicago talk program featuring a new host, Oprah, discussing issues from “how to get the man or woman of your dreams” to local community issues. Its popularity (and the fact that it was trouncing the syndicated The Phil Donahue Show, led to Oprah’s syndication in 1986 – and the rest, as they say, is history.
For the most part, anyway. When she started, she slipped into (and, for was in part responsible for) fueling the trash television phenomenon, in which daytime talk shows like Oprah’s presented tawdry tales from the secret lives of everyday Americans. She kept this format until 2001, when it was time to renew her contract. It's then she decided to focus show topics or more uplifting and philanthropic issues (along with the occasional visit from a celebrity or two – notably Tom Cruise’s 2005 couch-jumping declaration of love for actress Katie Holmes).
Oprah also made headlines during her 19th season premiere episode. She gave each audience member a new car. The cars were donated by Pontaic as part of a publicity stunt – which worked, since the show has been named one of the greatest moments in television history.
