Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is a TV presenter, actress, producer, and philanthropist known for her show of the same name. Forbes magazine named her the ninth most powerful woman in 2005 and the first in 2007, the most powerful person in show business in 2009, and the most powerful celebrity in 2010 and 2013.

Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29th, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi, US. She is a television personality, actress, and entrepreneur whose daily talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, was one of the most popular in this genre—drawing from 12 million to 13 million viewers on an average weekday at its peak in the early 1990s. She became one of the wealthiest and most influential women in the United States.

At the age of six, Winfrey moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to live with her mother, and in her early teens she relocated to Nashville to live with her father. At age 19, Winfrey became a news anchor for the local CBS television station. After her graduation from Tennessee State University in 1976, she became a reporter and co-anchor for WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, but was deemed unsuitable for the role and format.

In 1977 Winfrey took a job co-hosting the Baltimore morning show People Are Talking, and although she was skeptical of the career shift at first, she soon thrived in the new role. In an interview with Baltimore Magazine, she confessed

From that first day, I knew instantly this is what I was supposed to do. I felt like I had come home to myself.”

Winfrey excelled in the casual and personal talk-show format, and in 1984 she moved to Chicago to host the underperforming talk show AM Chicago. Winfrey shortly managed to turn the program into a success, and in 1985 it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. The program was syndicated nationally in 1986 and went on to become the highest-rated television talk show in the United States, also subsequently earning several Emmy Awards.

• Oprah Winfrey has transformed her hit talk show that ran for twenty-five years into a media and business empire.
• The reinvestment of the profits from her show as well as profits from films such as The Color Purple, Beloved and Selma (co-produced by Winfrey's own company, Harpo Productions) add up to more than $2 billion.
• In 2011, Winfrey launched the OWN cable channel. Her 25.5% of the network's ownership is valued at more than $65 million.
• In 2015, Winfrey purchased a 10% stake in Weight Watchers (since lowered to 7%) and operates as a brand ambassador for the company.
• In March 2020, Winfrey began hosting an interview show about Covid-19 on Apple TV+ as part of her multiyear contract with the streaming platform.