Oprah Celebrates 40 Years of The Oprah Winfrey Show

The Oprah Podcast

On the 40th anniversary of the debut of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah reflects on her journey from a young news anchor in Nashville and Balt

Key takeaways

• Oprah's success was built on self-belief and authenticity, starting with her decision to 'pretend' to be Barbara Walters during her audition.

Main topics

• Oprah's early television career
• The launch of The Oprah Winfrey Show

Notable quotes

"I bet on myself, this was almost unheard of at the time."

Conclusion

Oprah celebrates four decades of her groundbreaking show by honoring the

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) This episode of the Oprah podcast is presented by our partner, GEICO. Speaker 5 (0:13) And welcome to the very first National Oprah Winfrey Show! Speaker 6 (0:20) And I have to say, my life changed in ways I couldn't even imagine. Here's a look at how it all started. Speaker 5 (0:26) Hi there, my name is Oprah Winfrey. Oprah spelled O-P-R-A-H, and if you noticed, it's Harpo spelled backwards. Speaker 6 (0:34) I bet on myself, this was almost unheard of at the time. Speaker 6 (0:41) Hi there, and welcome to the Oprah Podcast. This is a momentous moment of... True gratitude for me. First of all, I live with gratitude in my spirit all the time. But this marks a different kind because it was 40 years ago, September 8th, 1986, to be exact, that the very first Oprah Winfrey show aired on national television. And at the time, I was 32 years old, which is unbelievable to me now that I... Got to live another 40 years. I'd been working in television since I was 19. I started in radio when I was 16 and moved to television, first as a weekend anchor in Nashville, Tennessee, and then as a regular news anchor in Baltimore before I finally co-hosted my first talk show. Started that in 1978. It's called People Are Talking with Richard Scher. Speaker 7 (1:47) People are talking with a couple of friends of yours, Richard Scher and Oprah Winfrey, and a lot of heart. Weekday mornings at 9 on Channel 13. That's what friends are for. Speaker 6 (2:02) Richard and I were co-hosts together on that show. And then I left Baltimore, moved to Chicago, which was the big leagues. It was the number three, still is, number three market in the country after Los Angeles. It was in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. And if you worked in television, you wanted to be in one of the top three markets. And the country... I was a different kind of country then. And I have to say, I was so excited about hosting AM Chicago. And everybody had told me, you know, what a racist city Chicago was and what a hard time I was going to have. And it was not true for me. I was embraced by the city and the people of the city. And most importantly, embraced by my boss, Dennis Swanson. My boss, Dennis Swanson, who believed and trusted that in spite of whatever racial feelings people might have, that I would be able to be successful on that show, hosting that show myself in the morning in Chicago. Good Speaker 5 (3:09) morning, everybody. I'm Winfrey of AM Chicago. Speaker 5 (3:21) Good morning. Hi, everybody. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and, of course, this is AM Chicago. Our topic this morning will probably shock most of you in and out of the medical field. According to two Speaker 6 (3:32) statistics, one out of ten doctors are addicted to drugs or to alcohol. And Speaker 5 (3:37) without further ado, let's meet Tad and his women. Speaker 5 (3:43) Good morning, everybody. I'm Oprah Winfrey. And this morning on AM Chicago, we're getting right down to it. Can a woman be accepted as vice president? Okay, so this is the man who put the curve in Morgan Fairchild and Linda Gray and all those wonderful people. Tell me all the other people you do. Speaker 7 (3:57) Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg. Steven! Steven Speaker 2 (4:00) Spielberg. I love Speaker 5 (4:02) him. You do? I love him. Want to Speaker 6 (4:04) meet Speaker 5 (4:04) him? Next time you talk to him, I hear he's doing this wonderful movie and mention my name. It's a great Speaker 6 (4:08) role for Speaker 5 (4:08) you. Okay, okay. Oprah Winfrey, okay. Speaker 6 (4:11) Where do you turn to when you are just a child and your mommy and daddy are drunk all the time? Good morning, I'm Oprah Winfrey Speaker 5 (4:17) and this is AM Chicago. Over 22 million adults, 22 million in this country, are children of alcoholics. My first guests say that she grew up with an alcoholic mother who still has a drinking problem. Here is a shocking statistic. At least... 60 % of married men, 60 % of married men, and 40 % of married women report that they have had extramarital affairs. Good morning, everybody. I'm Oprah Winfrey. I want to tell you that 11 years ago, I was 19 years old and was offered a job in broadcasting. I went to the CBS affiliate in Nashville, and they said, I know you've never done television before, but would you do an audition for us? I said, my God, I don't know what to do. I thought... I guess I'll just pretend to be Barbara Walters. And so here I am today, I think, because I pretended to be Barbara Walters for that first year of my broadcasting career in television, and look where it got me. Ladies and gentlemen, I am so thrilled to introduce my guest this morning, the Barbara Walters. Speaker 1 (5:33) So what did you do when you were doing me? Well, I talked a lot about myself. Speaker 5 (5:38) Oh, I don't. I know you don't. But before the audition, they said, tell us about yourself. But this is what I did. I thought, I Speaker 6 (5:44) had just seen you that morning on the Today Show. And I said, well, Speaker 5 (5:47) I Speaker 6 (5:47) guess I'll sit. Barbara always sits up straight. And she turns Speaker 5 (5:50) and she does this. And I did those kind of movements. I had no idea where to Speaker 6 (5:54) look into the camera. Speaker 5 (5:56) We're continuing our talk with Barbara Walters, and we only have a minute left in this show. Because I love it so much, I hope you'll agree to stay on and talk to us. We'll continue tomorrow. I'd love that. That's wonderful. I have to ask you, though, were there times during interviews with some very, very famous person where you'd have a question right there on the tip of your tongue and you'd forget Speaker 1 (6:14) it? Oh, yeah. Has that ever happened? More and more now. Isn't that horrible? But it's, oh, aren't we lucky? I mean, to do what we do and... to meet the kind of people, to be able to ask the questions that you really would love to ask, except if you asked it in private life, people would say, how dare you. How dare you. Speaker 5 (6:32) But you can do it on... Do Speaker 1 (6:33) you always go for that question? I don't think... It's not the... It's what we were talking about before. It's not the question that's going to... It's not going for the jugular. It's trying to have somebody open up. It's what you're trying to... It's what you're trying to do with me. What won't you ask? I think it's different. On the specials, I won't ask questions that I feel... Sometimes I know what they don't want to talk about. Paul Newman talking about his son who died. Someone talking perhaps about a recent divorce. If I know that it really is painful, I won't. But, for example, Jane Fonda on this interview talks about her father and the tears come. And that's not something where you're going... That's something where it just opens up and she begins to talk about their relationship. And then it's right, and then it works. Speaker 6 (7:20) And then it works. Oh, I can't even tell you how nervous I was because Barbara Walters had been an idol of mine for years. And for me to now be sitting there talking to Barbara Walters on my own little AM Chicago show in Chicago was pretty remarkable. I wouldn't have been sitting next to Barbara Walters at all if it were not for the man I mentioned earlier, Mr. Dennis Swanson. Take a look. Speaker 5 (7:48) Today's show means a lot to me and many of my guests. Throughout the hour, we're Speaker 6 (7:52) going Speaker 5 (7:52) to be doing something that all of us need to do much more often. And I'm going to kick it off with a surprise visit to a man I owe a great deal to. In September of 1983, 11 years ago, I came to Chicago, as a matter of fact, from Baltimore, on Labor Day to audition to be the host of a local TV show called at the time AM Chicago. It was... One of the biggest days of my life. There was one man who was in charge of the decision to hire me or not to hire me. It was this man that you're looking at right now. His name is Dennis Swanson. He's now the president of ABC Sports. And he has no idea that we have a camera on him right now at his office in New York. Nor does he know that I'm talking about him right now. Speaker 5 (8:47) And furthermore, he doesn't have a clue as to what's about to happen. I first met Dennis on that fateful audition day 11 years ago, and this is what I look like on that audition tape. I had a little jare curl for Dennis as I just went on about it. They told me to talk about myself. Speaker 6 (9:07) They said, tell us something about yourself. That's why I'm talking about myself. Take Speaker 5 (9:11) a look. Speaker 5 (9:13) Hi there. My name is Oprah Winfrey. Oprah spelled O-P-R-A-H, and if you noticed, it's Harpo spelled backwards. My folks did not particularly like Harpo marks. We did not even have a television set in