OPRAH WINFREY : THE WOMAN OF COLOUR WHO LED THE CHANGE

 BY MUDIT JAIN

Oprah Winfrey is living proof that the American dream is alive and kicking. The illegitimate daughter of a Mississippi farmer, she overcame abject poverty, parental neglect, sexual abuse and racism to become one of the richest and most powerful women in the entertainment industry. Through sheer force of will and by simply being herself, she reinvented the talk show space and still stands as the undisputed champ of daytime television.

In 1973, the 19-year-old Winfrey was offered a job as a co-news anchor at Nashville's CBS affiliate, WTVF-TV, and became not only Nashville's first female co-anchor but the first black co-anchor as well.

To further capitalize on her success, in 1986, Oprah formed Harpo Productions Inc. In 1988, she bought a production studio in Chicago and took over ownership and production of "The Oprah Winfrey Show." By the end of the 1990s, Winfrey's $415 million talk show empire had made her the wealthiest woman in show business and one of the most powerful figures in the television industry. Winfrey reinvested the profits from her talk show which were around $2 billion, per Forbes estimates. The show ran for 25 years, with its final broadcast in 2011, and helped to launch her media and business empire.

In 2015, Oprah bought a minority stake in Weight Watchers for a reported $34 million. By 2020, the value of her investment in the company had increased tenfolds to as much as $430 million. Oprah’s other business ventures include True Food Kitchen- a health food restaurant chain , Oatly - a swedish oats company, Apeel Sciences- a startup valued at $1 billion and she also was a co-founder of Oxygen Media which was sold to NBC Universal for $ 925 million. She has been ranked as the greatest black philanthropist in American history with sizable donations in her foundations- The Angel Network and The Oprah Winfrey Foundation.