After 25 years Oprah’s talk show airs for the last time

She has been on the air for a quarter of a century – transforming herself from talk show host to a global brand, and one of the most influential black women on the planet, writes Channel 4 News US analyst Felicity Spector.

Oprah Winfrey will broadcast her final show today, complete with tributes from a parade of top celebrities, from Tom Hanks to Madonna. Such is the reach of her television show, screened in 145 countries across the world, that advertisers have queued up to pay a million dollars for a 30-second slot – the kind of money normally reserved for huge sporting events like the Superbowl.

Her motto, “live your best life”, sums up her own personal story, the story that has inspired a whole new era of confession, self-help and ultimate repemption. She was the woman who had universal appeal, who spoke frankly about her childhood poverty, her sexual abuse, and her very public struggle with her weight.

Throughout it all, she managed to radiate an incredible charisma and unshakeable optimism – not simply building her business empire but devoting much of her energy to charitable projects too.

Oprah’s motto, ‘live your best life’, sums up her own personal story.

First and foremost, she was a huge television star. From a humble start as a reporter in Baltimore, she took her talk show to the far more influential market of Chicago and transformed it from a vehicle for salacious confessionals into a unique mixture of philanthropy, self-help, and unashamed consumerism.

Celebrities flocked to appear, with some unforgettable moments – Tom Cruise leaping up and down on the sofa, Oprah’s own appearance alongside 67lbs of fat to symbolise her weight loss, Sarah Ferguson apologising for trying to sell access to Prince Andrew, and James Frey’s abject apology for faking parts of his memoir.

Audiences often found themselves treated to “Oprah’s favourite things”. Once it was a Pontiac car – last year, most memorably, all 300 people in studio landed a trip to Australia.

Indeed, her personal endorsement proved to be a kind of marketing fairy dust for the fortunate companies she favoured, from kitchen equipment to handbags.

Book club

But it was her book club which perhaps proved her most influential achievement. Many credit her with rescuing the publishing industry from oblivion, or at the very least making reading cool again. The books she promoted, and the authors she championed, became instant best-sellers, shifting millions of copies within weeks of her on-screen promotion.

Her business acumen proved just as successful when it came to her own dealings. When she renegotiated the contract for her newsly syndicated show, she insisted on full control – and got it – building herself an estimated $2.7bn fortune in the process. That made her the wealthiest black woman in the world – and one of the most influential celebrities of modern times.

But she was far more than just a celebrity. She managed to lead national conversations on major issues like race and women’s rights. The fact that she was a black television host who became so universally popular was a source of immense pride in the African American community.

Charitable causes

Her charitable foundation, the Angel Network, raised more than $80m, all of which went on projects around the world, from Chicago to South Africa, and included the creation of 60 schools in some 13 countries. Her commitment to championing the cause of girls’ empowerment and female leadership resulted in the creation of a Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.

Its opening was attended by Nelson Mandela, among others – and despite controversy over allegations of sexual abuse, Oprah’s own morals were never called into question and the academy remains open.

Oprah’s influence was such that she became political gold-dust too: she campaigned so hard for the Child protection Act, signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, that it was informally known as the ‘Oprah Bill’. In 2000, she interviewed presidential candidates Al Gore and George W Bush – but it was her championing of Barack Obama, as far back as 2006, which showed her true political passion.

She hit the campaign trail with him several times – and when he won election in 2008 she appeared on her show with a T-shirt proclaiming ‘Hope Won!’. Earlier this year, in her first interview with a sitting President, Obama appeared alongside his wife Michelle.

The future

So what to make of Oprah – described by author Kathryn Lofton as “a modern day prophet in the American church of the self”? Her television show might be ending but this is certainly not the end of Oprah Winfrey, all-powerful media icon. The monthly O Magazine continues, with a circulation of some 2.5 million. Her production company Harpo has branched out into feature films for cinema and television.

And now there’s an entire cable television network, OWN – a trickier market to crack, perhaps, but then Oprah, the one-woman brand who became a household name around the world, is the mistress of reinvention. And failure in Oprah world, is just another word for ‘opportunity’.