Making

In the show's final decade, Oprah and her team staged massive spectacles of increasing grandiosity, from the infamous car giveaway to a 21,000-person flash mob that shut down part of Chicago.  “It had become increasingly more difficult to top what you'd done the year before,” Oprah told WBEZ's Jenn White. “I mean, to the point where we literally sat in a room saying 'What about outer space?' ”  Th...

In the second episode of Making Oprah , we explore how The Oprah Winfrey Show elevated itself out of the heap of trash TV and into a show that intentionally embraced spirituality and positivity.  The early years of Oprah's show often relied on sensational, tabloidy topics – cheating husbands, sexy clothes, and murderers. It was not yet the 'Live Your Best Life' Oprah we would come to know and love...

It was 30 years ago this fall that Oprah Winfrey first said “hellooooo” to a national audience. By the show's finale in 2011, it was aired in 145 countries and watched by more than 40 million viewers a week in the U.S. alone. Today's daytime hosts like Ellen and Dr. Oz? They now average only about a tenth of that. If Oprah mentioned a book title, it became a best-seller. She landed the interviews...

Making Oprah: The Inside Story of a TV Revolution is a public radio podcast -- about a daytime talk show. This fall marks 30 years since the national debut of The Oprah Winfrey Show . Be the first to hear a sneak peek of WBEZ's three-part series featuring interviews with Winfrey, her onetime ratings rival Phil Donahue, former producers and staffers, and TV executives.