Life without Oprah没有奥普拉的生活
The biggest challenge with the cable channel will be to see whether Oprah’s brand can survive independently from the star herself. But again she has experience here. She has produced several films that deal with the classic Oprah-themes of suffering and redemption in which she did not actually appear. But the best evidence that she can make successful programmes without starring in them is her success in launching Phil McGraw. She first encountered him after she said on air that fears of mad-cow disease had put her off hamburgers; he helped her handle a lawsuit from a group of enraged Texas cattlemen. She invited him onto her show several times, and then helped him get his own program. “Dr Phil” is now the second most popular talk-show host after Ms Winfrey herself.
对有线电视的最大挑战就是看奥普拉品牌是否能不依靠明星自己生存下去。再一次，温芙蕾尝试了有线电视。她创作了几部电影，涉及典型的有关受难和救赎的奥普 拉主题，而她本人并没哟出现在电影中。但是最能证明她能不用出任主演就能制作成功节目的是她成功激励了菲尔·麦克格劳博士。温芙蕾是在广播中说害怕疯牛病 夺去自己的汉堡遭到愤怒的牛肉场主控诉时，首次遇见了菲尔·麦克格劳博士。他帮她摆平了这起控诉。温芙蕾几次邀请他到脱口秀节目，而后帮他获得了他自己的 节目。“Dr Phil”是继温芙蕾女士之后的第二个最有名的脱口秀主持人。
Ms Winfrey has always been a vigilant steward of her brand. Almost from the first she wrested as much control as possible from the suits at CBS—and struck famously savvy deals into the bargain. This entailed not only creating her own company, Harpo, but also her own production studio. She is also notorious for her overbearing perfectionism. Ms Winfrey has steadfastly refused to take her company public, as Ms Stewart did. She has also refused to strike deals with retailers or stick her name on merchandise, as numerous celebrity chefs and athletes have done.
温芙蕾女士一向对自己的品牌管理警醒。几乎从一开始，她就要求得到CBS的更多的自由掌控权。这包括不仅是创造了她自己的公司Harpo，而且包括她自己 的制作工作室。她也因其傲慢的十全十美主义而臭名昭著。温芙蕾女士坚决拒绝让自己的公司上市，和斯图尔特一样。她也拒绝与零售商达成交易或将自己的名字贴 在商品上，就如许多名厨和运动员所做的。
Such vigilance about her brand is hardly a guarantee of success in the volatile and cacophonous media market. Her film version of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” earned only $23m, less than half what it cost to make. Her earlier tentative venture into the cable market, with Oxygen Media, enjoyed limited success. But Ms Winfrey’s handful of failures are as nothing compared with her successes. Perhaps more than any of her rivals Ms Winfrey understands that it is hard to fail in the media business if you put your faith in people’s appetite for stories of those who pick themselves up from the floor and make something of their lives.
她对自己品牌如此的警惕，很难保证在动荡噪杂的媒体市场取得成功。她的托妮·莫里森版本的电影“被爱”仅赚取2300万美元，比其成本的一半还少。她早期 尝试与氧气媒体合作进入有线市场，享受着有限的成功。但温芙蕾女士少数的失败与成功相比，是微不足道的。或许温芙蕾女士比她的任何一个竞争对手都明白，如 果你将信念对中人们的胃口，讲述这些从地上爬起来的人们和在自己生活中有所得人的故事，就很难在媒体业务中失败。