Oprah

So apparently today was Oprah’s last show. In 2010, Forbes estimated that Oprah was worth $2.4 billion. Surely this is a lot of money but has she honestly improved the standard of living like Bill Gates of Steve Jobs? I am sure people that watched her show said they were enriched by her but did they pay for it? I have more respect for the entrepreneurs that created products millions of people bought and made society better off than Oprah.

One valid argument one could make is that Oprah created awareness for issues. True, people may not have had a lot of information about personal finance, health issues, child predators, etc however didn’t the internet fix this? Oprah’s ratings in 1991 were around 12.6 million people per episode, but by 2009 ratings fell to 6.2 million people. It is important to point out that ratings only decreased since 1991. With the rise of the information age of the 1990s it would seem as if more people could substitute the internet for Oprah in order to get their information or awareness. Instead of waiting to see what facts or news Oprah could bring people can now within a few seconds find out information on a wide variety of subjects.

I personally think it is great that Oprah has her money and gives to charity. What I guess I am curious about is how she made so much money informing people. The way she really made her money was because so many people watched her show and since advertisers pay based on how many people are watching it would increase the value of the show. Since there seems to be a high demand for her I would think they would start selling episodes (over 4,000 of them) on ITunes for 99 cents and let even more money flow in. Even though I don’t think people like Thomas Sowell or Walter E. Williams agree with her views I think they might agree that an African American coming from nothing and becoming a billionaire is nothing to sneeze at. The great thing about America is unlike other nations just because you start out your life a certain way doesn’t mean you will end your life that way.