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Business Challenges for Oprah Winfrey

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Oprah Winfrey Business Challenges Oprah Winfrey grew up in a world of adversity, despite her early accomplishments as a gifted child. She began her career in 1976, when she moved to Baltimore to join WJZ-TV News. (Oprah Winfrey Biography, 2011) Her empathetic personality made her many friends, and she was invited to Chicago in 1984 to begin hosting a half-hour morning program. Within a year, she had turned the AM Chicago radio show into the most important radio show in town, and was soon expanded to a full one-hour format. During this time, Oprah struggled with the stereotype that as a black woman she would always be an assistant anchor on the news, or simply a well-spoken host of a talk show. This could not have been further from the truth, as Oprah was able to create her own format for excellence in all forms of media, not simply talk or television. The show was renamed the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1985, and kept that name for twenty-five years until she retired the show in 2010. The show began a nationally syndicated television broadcast in 1986, after Chicago area viewers made the show one of the most highly rated shows on broadcast television. Suddenly, Oprah had gone from a local personality with a strong character to a nationally recognized individual who had a message and a vision that she would continue to establish and promote for a quarter century. There was no peer challenger in her timeslot for the entire duration of her time on television. When Oprah decided

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