Professor
09-07-2007, 04:12 PM
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-fri_phil_0907sep07,0,6584791.column
Selling Obama may be beyond Oprah's reach
Phil Rosenthal (philrosenthal@tribune.com) | Media
September 7, 2007
Oprah Winfrey is going to do her show Monday from New York, the "one place big enough for Oprah's season premiere," according to the announcer on her promos.
The Sept. 23 season premiere of "The Simpsons" has Homer Simpson visiting Chicago, "the Miami of Canada," according to billionaire coot C. Montgomery Burns.
Icon for icon, "O" for "d'oh," it's not a bad trade for this city. Eventually, however, each TV star will return to her or his respective hometown.
Despite the hype -- really, Chicago isn't big enough? -- much of the talk about Oprah lately has had little to do with her New York trip and the new TV season, which she plans to begin with an interview of CBS' David Letterman, who once said he didn't want to visit Winfrey because he "would break down and sob like a little girl [and] I'd never be able to live that down ... Oprah handing me a tissue."
The discussion, instead, has centered more on the other coast, the big fundraiser she's hosting for Sen. Barack Obama on the grounds of her 42-acre California estate, and whether the Oprah Factor can do for a presidential candidate what it has done for selected books, pajamas, Dr. Phil, cookie dough and her other "favorite things."
The Oprah brand is undeniably a powerful thing. Most TV shows have an audience. She has a congregation.
Her syndicated program reaches 8.4 million viewers, her Web site has 2.3 million unique visitors monthly, and her monthly magazine has 2 million readers, all looking to be entertained and informed and, yes, sometimes led.
When she tells them to read, say, James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces," they hit the bookstores. When Frey and the book come under fire, and she feels her credibility and brand are threatened, she tells them she was wrong, and they buy that too.
What's often lost in the slack-jawed admiration of Oprah's hold over her flock is perhaps the greatest secret of her success. She is selling something she senses her followers already want: It's all about feeling better about oneself.
When the faithful buy the latest Oprah Book Club selection, they not only feel connected to a group, they also feel smart and virtuous. Reading the book and being able to join in discussions about it amplifies this feeling, but they can also place the book -- read or unread -- on the shelf like a trophy, marking the time they did something to enrich themselves.
Who doesn't like comfy sleepwear or a good cookie? Who doesn't want to know that most problems can be solved with a verbal slap of good sense, a la Dr. Phil? When Oprah was touting her show as "Change Your Life TV," the idea was that everyone, even Oprah, longs to improve her or his life.
Whether this knack for giving people what they already want translates to politics isn't entirely clear.
A Gallup-CNN-USA Today poll had George W. Bush trailing Al Gore by 10 percentage points going into a September 2000 visit with Oprah, to whom Bush talked about his love of family and God. As the Washington Post noted, within a week the same poll had Bush up by two points, a statistical tie.
But how much of that was exposure on Oprah's show and how much of that was her audience's receptiveness to the notes Bush hit in that appearance?
Just by backing a candidate, something she has avoided before, Oprah has drawn attention to herself and to Obama. While she has forwarded causes before, this is different and potentially polarizing, which is what makes it interesting. But if you can't do what you want when you're as rich and popular as Oprah, when can you?
But people who vote for Oprah because it feels good may not do the same for a politician.
It's not as though she can sell anything. That's the lesson of "Beloved."
Winfrey poured all she could into that 1998 film. She said in interviews that to immerse herself in the role of Sethe, she had herself blindfolded, abandoned in the woods and forced to hear racial taunts and threats to simulate slavery. "It was raw, raw, raw pain," she told Time magazine at the time.
The film's reported budget was more than $50 million. The U.S. box office? Less than $30 million.
Sometimes, as Homer Simpson has said, "trying is the first step toward failure."
NIP TUCK: As part of a plan to centralize and consolidate some of its advertiser-customer accounting functions, Chicago-based Tribune Co. intends to eliminate 100 positions companywide, roughly 0.5 percent of its workforce, by the end of the year.
The move will affect back-office operations at some of the media company's 11 daily newspapers, as well as at the corporate level. Some positions will be eliminated by attrition. Tribune Co. owns the Chicago Tribune.
Selling Obama may be beyond Oprah's reach
Phil Rosenthal (philrosenthal@tribune.com) | Media
September 7, 2007
Oprah Winfrey is going to do her show Monday from New York, the "one place big enough for Oprah's season premiere," according to the announcer on her promos.
The Sept. 23 season premiere of "The Simpsons" has Homer Simpson visiting Chicago, "the Miami of Canada," according to billionaire coot C. Montgomery Burns.
Icon for icon, "O" for "d'oh," it's not a bad trade for this city. Eventually, however, each TV star will return to her or his respective hometown.
Despite the hype -- really, Chicago isn't big enough? -- much of the talk about Oprah lately has had little to do with her New York trip and the new TV season, which she plans to begin with an interview of CBS' David Letterman, who once said he didn't want to visit Winfrey because he "would break down and sob like a little girl [and] I'd never be able to live that down ... Oprah handing me a tissue."
The discussion, instead, has centered more on the other coast, the big fundraiser she's hosting for Sen. Barack Obama on the grounds of her 42-acre California estate, and whether the Oprah Factor can do for a presidential candidate what it has done for selected books, pajamas, Dr. Phil, cookie dough and her other "favorite things."
The Oprah brand is undeniably a powerful thing. Most TV shows have an audience. She has a congregation.
Her syndicated program reaches 8.4 million viewers, her Web site has 2.3 million unique visitors monthly, and her monthly magazine has 2 million readers, all looking to be entertained and informed and, yes, sometimes led.
When she tells them to read, say, James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces," they hit the bookstores. When Frey and the book come under fire, and she feels her credibility and brand are threatened, she tells them she was wrong, and they buy that too.
What's often lost in the slack-jawed admiration of Oprah's hold over her flock is perhaps the greatest secret of her success. She is selling something she senses her followers already want: It's all about feeling better about oneself.
When the faithful buy the latest Oprah Book Club selection, they not only feel connected to a group, they also feel smart and virtuous. Reading the book and being able to join in discussions about it amplifies this feeling, but they can also place the book -- read or unread -- on the shelf like a trophy, marking the time they did something to enrich themselves.
Who doesn't like comfy sleepwear or a good cookie? Who doesn't want to know that most problems can be solved with a verbal slap of good sense, a la Dr. Phil? When Oprah was touting her show as "Change Your Life TV," the idea was that everyone, even Oprah, longs to improve her or his life.
Whether this knack for giving people what they already want translates to politics isn't entirely clear.
A Gallup-CNN-USA Today poll had George W. Bush trailing Al Gore by 10 percentage points going into a September 2000 visit with Oprah, to whom Bush talked about his love of family and God. As the Washington Post noted, within a week the same poll had Bush up by two points, a statistical tie.
But how much of that was exposure on Oprah's show and how much of that was her audience's receptiveness to the notes Bush hit in that appearance?
Just by backing a candidate, something she has avoided before, Oprah has drawn attention to herself and to Obama. While she has forwarded causes before, this is different and potentially polarizing, which is what makes it interesting. But if you can't do what you want when you're as rich and popular as Oprah, when can you?
But people who vote for Oprah because it feels good may not do the same for a politician.
It's not as though she can sell anything. That's the lesson of "Beloved."
Winfrey poured all she could into that 1998 film. She said in interviews that to immerse herself in the role of Sethe, she had herself blindfolded, abandoned in the woods and forced to hear racial taunts and threats to simulate slavery. "It was raw, raw, raw pain," she told Time magazine at the time.
The film's reported budget was more than $50 million. The U.S. box office? Less than $30 million.
Sometimes, as Homer Simpson has said, "trying is the first step toward failure."
NIP TUCK: As part of a plan to centralize and consolidate some of its advertiser-customer accounting functions, Chicago-based Tribune Co. intends to eliminate 100 positions companywide, roughly 0.5 percent of its workforce, by the end of the year.
The move will affect back-office operations at some of the media company's 11 daily newspapers, as well as at the corporate level. Some positions will be eliminated by attrition. Tribune Co. owns the Chicago Tribune.