PBS (2010-1) (세번째 수업)

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3. Oprah Looks Ahead to a Future in Cable 

OPRAH WINFREY, "The Oprah Winfrey Show": 우리 시청자 여러분과 함께 한 지난 몇 년 내 삶은 형언할 수 없을 정도로 풍요해졌습니다.

JEFFREY BROWN: 오늘 오후는 온전히 오프라 시간이었다. 오프라 윈프리는 자신이 이끌어 온 엄청나게 인기 있고 성공적인 낮 시간대 토크쇼가 25시즌 이후 2년 내에 끝날 것이며 자신은 새로운 케이블 채널을 만드는데 집중할 것이라고 말했다. 그 케이블 채널의 명칭도 역시 온전히 오프라. Oprah Winfrey Network, 약자로 OWN.

OPRAH WINFREY: 그러면, 왜 멀쩡한 것을 그만두고 다음 시즌을 마지막 시즌이 되게 하는가? (라는 질문을 하시겠죠). 진짜 이유는 이렇습니다. 저는 이 프로그램을 사랑합니다. 이 프로그램은 저의 삶 그 자체였습니다. 그리고 이 쇼를  사랑하기만큼 언제 작별을 고해야 할 지도 알고 있습니다. 지난 25년은 제가 절대로 잊을 수 없는 기억입니다.

처음으로 전국에 방송되는 “오프라 윈프리 쇼” 시청자 여러분 반갑습니다.

JEFFREY BROWN: 매일 7백만 명 가량이 시청하는 오프라 윈프리 쇼는 대낮 TV 방송으로서는 최장수 프로그램이자 미국 TV역사상 최고의 시청률을 자랑하는 방송이기도 하다.

오프라가 유명한 것은 1993년 마이클 잭슨을 필두로 바로 이번 주에는 사람 페일린에 이르기까지 유명인들을 대상으로 한 인터뷰, 인기있는 문화계 저명 인사들의 즉흥적이고 황당한 행동들, 그리고 67파운드 체중 감량이 어떤 것인지 적나라하게 보여주기 위해 바퀴 달린 운반대에 지방덩어리를 실어서 무대에 올렸던 1988년의 경우처럼 정기적으로 자신의 삶을 프로그램의 포커스가 되도록 하기 때문이다. 

하지만 오프라 윈프리 쇼는 수십억 달러에 달하는 오프라 미디어 제국의 일부에 불과하다. 무엇보다도, 오프라는 성공한 TV프로듀서로서 Dr. Phil (토크 쇼 형태의 상담), 레이첼 레이 (파티 장식, 요리 방법을 선보이는 생활 프로그램) 등을 탄생시킨 주역이며 잡지 출판업자로서 2004년에는 오프라 잡지인 “O”를 출간했으며 매주 자신을 표지 모델로 등장시킨다. 그리고 오늘 전국에 개봉된 “Precious”를 포함해 여러 영화를 제작하기도 했다.

OPRAH WINFREY: 모두 집에 가실 때 버버리 코트 한 벌씩 가져가세요, ….

3. Oprah Looks Ahead to a Future in Cable 

After 23 years as a daytime talk show legend, Oprah Winfrey has announced she will be ending her program to concentrate on a new cable channel that will bear her name. Jeffrey Brown reports.

JIM LEHRER: And now: Oprah makes a move.

Jeffrey Brown tells the story.

OPRAH WINFREY, "The Oprah Winfrey Show": These years with you, our viewers, have enriched my life beyond all measure.

JEFFREY BROWN: It was a pure Oprah moment this afternoon, as Oprah Winfrey announced that her phenomenally popular and successful daytime talk show will end in two years, after 25 seasons, and that she will concentrate on creating a new cable channel to be called -- and this, too, is pure Oprah -- the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN.

OPRAH WINFREY: So, why walk away and make next season the last? Here's the real reason. I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it's time to say goodbye. Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and it feels right in my spirit.

Welcome to the very first national "Oprah Winfrey Show"!

JEFFREY BROWN: With some seven million daily viewers, Winfrey's show is the highest rated talk show in American television history, as well as the longest running on daytime TV.

She's known for celebrity interviews, from Michael Jackson in 1993, to Sarah Palin just this week, for some wacky moments that enter popular cultural legend, and for regularly making her own story the focus of the program, as, in 1988, when she wheeled in a wagon loaded with fat to showcase her 67-pound weight loss.

But her program is only part of the multibillion-dollar Oprah media empire. Among other things, she's also a successful TV producer, the force behind Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray, and others, a magazine publisher -- in 2004, she launched "O," the Oprah magazine, which features her on the cover every week -- and a movie producer of films, including "Precious," which is just opening nationwide today.

OPRAH WINFREY: Everybody goes home with their own Burberry, people.

JEFFREY BROWN: Oprah the entertainer, worth some $2.7 billion, also notably got herself involved in politics, and, by all accounts, showed some of her larger influence when she publicly supported President Obama in last year's campaign.

This afternoon, some faithful viewers we found at a Northern Virginia spa watched her announcement.

WOMAN: Oh, wow. I can't even remember not watching Oprah. I can remember going home to get from high school and turn it on. And she was the nice alternative to Phil Donahue. She just connected with the people. And she wasn't stuffy. And she had it there in the studio on it, but it also comes across the camera. And I think that takes a real talent.

JEFFREY BROWN: Oprah's move to cable, a joint venture with Discovery Communications, will shake up the world of commercial TV, and represents a gamble that her audience will follow.

Oprah's New Venture: Can She Still Mobilize Fan Base? 

After decades as a popular talk show host, Oprah Winfrey will end her daytime program to concentrate on a new cable channel. Jeffrey Brown examines Winfrey's mark on the media landscape.

JEFFREY BROWN: And joining me for more is Eric Deggans, media critic for The Saint Petersburg Times in Florida.

So, what -- tell us, what is known about Oprah, why she is ending her program and heading for cable TV?

ERIC DEGGANS, The Saint Petersburg Times: Sure.

Oprah -- Oprah's contract to do her syndicated TV show was about to run out at the end the 2011. She had to make a decision about whether she was going to keep doing the show. And, instead of keeping doing the show, she has decided to stop.

Now, we're assuming that she's going to take a show to a cable channel that she is developing with the Discovery Communications Group called the Oprah Winfrey Network. But she has not announced that she is going to do a show for them. But the rumors in Hollywood land and TV land are that she is going to do some kind of different show, not like the show she is doing now, for that cable channel.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right.

Well, before we get to this future cable network, first, I mean, we see why viewers care about this, but explain why this matters in the world of media business. Why is she such a force? And how does -- how does this reverberate?

ERIC DEGGANS: Well, obviously, Oprah is a cultural icon, and, more than that, she is an icon in the TV business. She leaves the highest rated syndicated TV show right now.

And that business has been in decline. Oprah herself, even though she is still the highest rated, has seen her ratings go down by half in recent years. And there was a sense that she would not earn the kind of money from the show that she has been earning. She might have to take up to a 50 percent cut in revenues, because TV stations are hurting right now.

The recession has hit them hard. They are not getting the kind of advertising revenue they are used to. And they can't pay the kind of big money they used to pay to have "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

So, her moving to cable is a sense that, with her vote, she is voting for the future of her brand and the future of her celebrity with cable television, as opposed to broadcast. And that's very significant.

JEFFREY BROWN: And what does she leave behind? I mean, who is hurt in the network world? She's got one network, ABC, where most of her shows air. She's got another one, I think CBS, that syndicates her show. And she's got all these programs that she leads into that care about having her, right?

ERIC DEGGANS: Exactly.

You have named all the big people who are going to be hurt by her departure. CBS Television bought the syndicator that handles the Oprah Winfrey Network some time ago. They are going to lose a lot of money. ABC stations across the country mostly handle her show. So, they are used to this huge audience being fed into their 5:00 p.m. local newscasts. So, all of those stations are going to be looking at, what can we do now to replace Oprah Winfrey?

Here in Tampa, an NBC affiliate airs her show, and they have had the top 5:00 p.m. newscast for some years now. That whole balance of power is going to shift. And we will be seeing these kinds of things in markets all across the country once she leaves on September 9, 2011.