Thursday, February 09, 2006

Damn! I just signed up for XM. If I had known, I would have opted for Sirius..(despite Stern)..

Talk about medicoracy.

An overrated, overpaid -grossly overpaid- and dumb wishywashy personality.

She maybe a shrewd business woman who capitalized on an empty field of real competition but in no way for what she offers the public is she worth the billions she has. No....the tepid movies she made don't account for much.

Without the legions of hypnotized stay-at-home moms -love those- or slackers waiting for a check in the mail - uhhh....don't like those- she would have vanished a long time ago. But I guess someone has to keep the masses entertained during BUSINESS hours.

She is a sweet lady, very nice and with good intentions, but she is just not gifted in anything useful. She is after all the person who brought you...tara tara tara....Yes, Dr Phil, with all of his baldness. And maybe soon his son too.

Oh God.

One aside here after the dust settled: I didn't want to initially post about the Frey episode and I deplore Dan's article on that one, but I resent how she got all the credit for doing that retraction show with Frey and how she was 'courageous' and 'honest'
I give more credit to the guy, as despicable as he is and useless, he had the courage to show up and do the show where he would surely come under the worst lights and was pretty direct in his confessions.

If she truly had any courage or clue, she should have known where to stand the moment the story unraveled. "No, Larry, there is no excuse. It was a work of fiction that should have been labeled as such. Mr Frey should have been more forthcoming and I do not endorse buying the book anymore. Perhaps Mr Frey would have had a lot of success with his book as a work of fiction as well. BUt he misled us all and I have no excuse. I apologize to all who trusted my program."

A few days later, a few tears later, a few sighs on closeup camera later, you got Opera, ready to brush it aside.

God Help you, Oprah or Harpo or whatever...

At least Stern's following knows where he stands and what he's all about, beyond money of course, a common denominator for all these characters.

The key to Oprah's success:

Well, it is simple. Oprah does for women what sports talk radio does for men.

Oprah keys in on polarizing issues, always taking the right side of the argument. Her legions include not only catatonic stay-at-homes, but also many successful working people that are reached through her sprawling media empire.

I don't think that she is a bad person, Oprah is just damned powerful. She is enabled by her consumers, as is Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Martha Stewart, etc. These people are not born into this power, it is earned and must be maintained. If Oprah's audience were to shrink, so would her influence. This could happen with time.

Right now, Oprah may be drunk with power. So much so, that she may be willing to take chances. In addition to endorsing products and books, she may start supporting political candidates (how does Oprah's Political Club sound?)

Of course it is not right for one person to have so much influence. Her book endorsements carry way to much weight. I'm sure that some of her selections are good reads, but what made her the preeminent literary critic. Well, the people have! It is up to dissenting minds to ignore her.