Oprah “Redefined the Talk Show Genre”
By Aya Kordy
Oprah Winfrey intends to end her 25-year run as a talk show host in 2011. The show is syndicated in more than 140 countries, and has been consistently successful since its establishment. According to the BBC the show “redefined the talk show genre” and created an “empire” which included “magazines, books and a satellite radio station” .The show was noted for its inclusion of major figures from the political and entertainment worlds. Oprah was able to challenge established figures such as Dr. Phil Donahue, and expanded the fairly narrow format of the talk show to incorporate a wide and diverse range of topics, from serious social and political issues to the more light-hearted aspects of the entertainment business.
Although Oprah still claims the highest ratings, “audiences are half what they were a decade ago” (BBC, 2009), which may have been a significant factor in the decision. TV stations built their schedules around Oprah, and distributor CBS will unquestionably lose hundreds of millions of dollars when the show ends. The falling audience numbers may have prompted the move to cable, for Oprah Winfrey is widely expected to start up a new talk show on the Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint venture with Discovery. This would seem to indicate that the ‘Oprah show’, as such, is unlikely to disappear altogether, but will simply be changing its venue. BBC news points out that Discovery has invested heavily in the new venture, which would not be the case if Oprah herself intended to retire from the TV spotlight.
The audience response has been muted, although viewers describe the show as central and important to their lives. Although Oprah herself has been circumspect about the future of the show, it seems unlikely that she will be leaving national television completely. Rather, it seems that she is changing audience her method in order to boost ratings and avoid the typical programming which has led to a decline in audience numbers over the past few years.
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