As a brand, her impact is unmatched ? including helping Obama to the White House. But as Oprah Winfrey prepares to quit the sofa in favour of creating her own network, will her public follow her?
For 24 years and nearly 5,000 shows it has been a gigantic part of America's TV landscape. Watching the Oprah Winfrey Show has been a ritual for millions of Americans akin to going to church, involving many of the same ideas of paying homage and taking instruction on how to lead their lives.
It has established Winfrey as one of America's most prominent cultural figures. "She is possibly the most powerful woman in the world," said Alicia Quarles, Associated Press's global entertainment editor, who has interviewed Winfrey several times.
In the new year that era will begin to come to an end. On 1 January, Winfrey launches her own TV channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and prepares to end the show that for almost a quarter of a century has kept her at the top of America's cutthroat showbusiness hierarchy.
It is a huge gamble. When the Oprah Winfrey Show's last episode airs next summer, Oprah will be on her own. She has confessed in an interview with her own magazine that the risk is keeping her up at night. No doubt the prospect is giving many among her legions of fans sleepless nights too. Why the fuss? After all, it is just a TV show. Right?
Not quite. There is little about Winfrey that does not invite hyperbole. "Oprah Winfrey is a god. She is a force of nature," said Richard Laermer, a TV critic at the Huffington Post and author of the book 2011: Trendspotting.
With Winfrey, such statements do not seem a stretch of the imagination. After all this is a woman whose endorsement of Barack Obama in 2007 was considered vital to his run for the presidency. His subsequent appearance on her show as president was also seen as more important to him than her. "When Obama was on her show, I thought, 'How great that she had an opening'," Laermer said.
Oprah is far more than a TV star. She has used her daytime talkshow as a hub for a huge media business that has made her a billionaire. Apart from the show, her production company, Harpo, is involved in many other TV programmes and films. Her magazine O ? which has put Oprah on every one of its covers ? is hugely influential for its readers and sells 2.4 million copies a month. She has a satellite radio company, a popular website and 4.6 million Twitter followers.
She is involved in charities all around the world for whom the mystical name Oprah brings in much-needed dollars.But the real impact of Oprah stretches far beyond the mundane operations of her business. It lies in the power of her brand and the loyalty of her followers. She has the power to bestow success on virtually anyone or anything. Like a fairy godmother waving a capitalist wand, she can create a bestselling book by a recommendation. Or see a product ? such as a dress or kitchen gadget ? immediately fly off the shelves if she names it on her favourite things segment. It goes for other TV personalities. The list of celebrities who owe a debt to Oprah for launching their careers is long and includes household names in the US such as Dr Phil and Rachael Ray.
So reliable and powerful has this ability become that it even has a name: the Oprah Effect. It has spawned a virtual industry of its own, as marketing executives, film producers and book publishers scramble to catch Oprah's eye or those of her top staff. "If she endorses a product, millions of people buy it," said Matt Eventoff, an expert in communication strategy at Princeton Public Speaking. "Obama found it a game-changer to go on her show when he was just a senator."
It is all a long way from Winfrey's humble beginnings. Her journey began in Kosciusko, Mississippi, where she was born into rural poverty. She then moved to inner-city Milwaukee where her struggles continued. She endured rape and the death of her baby when she got pregnant at 14. Yet somehow Winfrey thrived. She moved to Tennessee and landed a radio job. Soon she was anchoring the local evening news and from there she eventually transferred to daytime TV in Chicago and began to conquer the world.
Her secret was relatively simple: a combination of astonishing hard work, an innate ability to seem genuine to her audience and huge amounts of charisma. Finally, there was also luck and perfect timing.
Winfrey's emergence coincided with a trend towards "confessional television" and also the coming of age in the 1980s of a demographic cohort of white suburban women open to having a friendly, charismatic black friend.
"It is being in the right place at the right time. She brought the black girlfriend experience to white Americans and they embraced it," said Dr Juliet Walker, a black history expert at the University of Texas at Austin, who has taught a course on Winfrey.
That touches on one of the great debates over Oprah: the effect of her race. Walker has postulated that Winfrey being black and so successful has not helped ease broader race relations. Indeed, her success might even preserve racial problems by serving as a meaningless symbol of a mythical post-racialism. "It is easier to embrace one person than it is 40 million people," she said.
Others disagree. They say the hero worship around Winfrey is a powerful message for racial equality. And they point out that when Winfrey endorsed Obama over Hillary Clinton, it was a sign that she sees her race as important, even when going against her show's core demographic.
In truth, for the vast majority of Winfrey's fans, her race is irrelevant. They are instead attracted in their droves by her empathy and her ability to be open about her own foibles and problems. "She constantly shows what appears to be real emotion," said Laermer. "When she cries, when she feels bad, when she's burned out, she reveals these things. People see real emotions."
Coupled with that is her wide geographic appeal of broadcasting from the heartland but coming from the South. To many Americans she is easy to relate to. "She grew up in the south and broadcasts from the midwest, which would speak to a lot of potential viewers," said Jeff McCall, a communications expert at DePauw University, Indiana. "She wasn't a burned-out star or a beauty model looking for a platform to draw attention to herself, but a person who had seen the ups and downs of real life."
As with most things Oprah, there is also a degree of savvy and sharp decision-making behind her public persona. Her open approach has allowed her to ride out the sort of scandals that beset any famous public figures.
Neither the speculation over her relationship with her best friend, Gayle King, nor her fights with authors such as Jonathan Franzen and James Frey, nor the sex scandals at her school in South Africa damaged the one thing Oprah values above all else: her brand.
This is holding true as Oprah prepares to go it alone. The run-up has been meticulous and carefully orchestrated. Her magazine is carefully revealing her concerns and worries, but pitching it to reflect the worries about change that her female fans would also feel in their own lives. She has given a heartfelt interview to Barbara Walters in which she wept as she denied the lesbian rumours about her and King.
She has visited Australia to film some of her final series: perhaps just checking on the state of her global fame. Judging by the local press attention ? they renamed the Sydney Opera House the Oprah House when she recorded two shows there, and 350,000 Australians applied for the ballot to be in the audience ? it is very healthy.
She is also adopting a staggered approach. The Oprah Winfrey Network, with Oprah taking the top executive decisions, will launch while her TV show is still running. That is a wise move, allowing her new venture to feed off the publicity of the old. Few think she will lose her audience. "She has spent so long on her loyal base, I don't see her losing her influence at all," said Eventoff. "They will follow her wherever she goes."
As America passes a cultural milestone, it seems Winfrey's greatest challenge might not be such a big hurdle after all. She will continue to rule the airwaves from her own channel. Perhaps it will even bring even more influence and, power and wealth.
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