Big O

Right, so Oprah. Where to start? Firstly, what is she like? I have no idea. I didn’t actually meet her. Not up close. There were no hugs to be had by me. But as I try to write this and tell you about the day at the first Oprah show taping, I find I’m very foggy. Maybe this is because I sat in the boiling sun without sunglasses and didn’t have anything to eat until lunchtime except two bites of a soggy nectarine and a bottle of water – which isn’t food but was very necessary as we all sat there sweating. Or maybe it’s because it was a little surreal. She is the most famous woman in the world. And the most powerful media player. She is iconic and it’s always weird when your icons intersect with your actual life. What’s she like? A bit like the cross between Santa and a cult leader – but in a good way. More about that shortly.

Was it fun? Yes. But more interesting than fun. There’s a certain detachment that comes from watching something through media eyes – I didn’t enter the ticket lottery and win my seat. I thought about entering but never got around to it. It’s only during a chance conversation with Caroline Overington when she asked me if I’d applied for media accreditation that it occurred to me that I could. So I did. And I got it. And then I was there. I came into Oprah’s orbit several different times in the past 24 hours, a couple of them totally by accident. And I had the chance to observe her in a few different situations. Here’s a rundown…. THE DAY BEFORE

How is this for timing….Jason and I had been at an external meeting and as we made our way into the office, we stopped outside the lift in our building to continue a work conversation we wanted to finish while things were still fresh.

Oprah

A man walked out one of the offices and said “Oh, you two are missing all the excitement! Oprah’s out there!” and then next thing you know, Jason is standing there talking to dust.

That’s how fast I got my arse inside to see what was going on.

Lana, Nicky and our intern Nat were all standing on the MM balcony, gazing down at….Oprah. She was all of about 20m away, with her audience, having just hopped off boats with Russell Crowe. Everyone was wearing Rabbitoh’s caps, naturally. Russell loves a bit of South Sydney promotion, even if visiting celebrities have no idea what NRL stands for. Wait, neither do I.

Anyway, we stood there pretty transfixed as Oprah shook hands and spoke to the crowd before going into the restaurant with her 302 ‘ultimate viewers’ who she brought from the US. As it happens, their restaurant was directly below my office and IT HAD A GLASS ROOF.

Seriously, how does that happen? So we moved our laptops onto the balcony and worked out there while listening to the speeches. It was a private lunch – no media – and it seemed like it was the first time Oprah had addressed her viewers privately in Australia. She gave a long speech – more like a chat really, in her signature style – but the part that got our attention was when she explained that none of them were there by accident. “My staff went through your bios and your letters and looked into your stories” (I assume you have to fill out a form to get regular Oprah tickets, that’s how she identified those who REALLY needed a car when she gave them all away) “You’re all here because of what has happened to you in your lives, your childhoods, what you’ve overcome and what you’ve been through.” I will admit we got Goosebumps a bit at this. I’d always wondered if they’d been there by accident – but nothing in Oprah’s world happens by accident. Her philanthropy and extraordinary generosity are not haphazard. “Everyone on this trip is an incredible person,” she went on to the sound of whoops and cheers – it was obviously the first the audience had heard about how they’d been chosen. “There are no assholes on this trip! This is an asshole-free trip!” I love it when Oprah swears. And yes, she actually did.

DAY OF THE SHOW

.

I turned up early so I could do my Today show segment a day early in the Opera House forecourt with Lisa. I drove as close to the Opera House (I keep typing Oprah House) as I could, then swung my car into a car park and started walking, with my media passes, I got to walk on the other side of the road from the 6000 audience members who had been queuing up since lord knows when.

It was only 7am and the streets were absolutely packed. Like New Year’s Eve but without the drunk people. I did my cross to Lisa and when she asked me something about the people who were cynical about the whole Oprah shebang and how someone had CRIED and how some people might say that was ridiculous…. And I replied that I’d seen people cry about PARIS HILTON or THE BEATLES and that Oprah at least used her celebrity for good, not just for sex tapes and selling records.

What I should have added was that make no mistake, this trip is about business. I learnt more about that in the press conference immediately afterwards and like I always do, I played my segment back over and over in my head, editing and ‘re-writing’ my answers….

PRESS CONFERENCE I was a bit late for this because a radio station in Newcastle had seen my tweets (I was trying my hand at live tweeting something which I really don’t recommend…) and wanted to interview me about the vibe at the show.

Oprah came into the press conference with Alan Joyce, CEO of QANTAS, the head of Tourism Australia and tourism minister Martin Fergusson.

They all gave a quick speech about the business side – this was all business actually. And it certainly extended the middle finger – in the nicest possible way – to anyone who is bitching and moaning about ‘tax payer money’ and the ‘exorbitant investment’ made by Tourism Australia in bringing the Oprah show to Australia.

I can’t remember all of the numbers but I do remember this one:

4 hours of prime time TV in the US plus the 145 countries where Oprah is broadcast – she described it as a “4 hour love-fest”

When she was probed more about the cost benefit etc – she pointed out that she only does deals which are win-win for both parties. Otherwise she’s not interested. What a sound business philosophy, seriously.

And she said that it really would be hard to measure directly the results of the investment made by Tourism Australia and Qantas etc because maybe the people who saw the show might not get here but maybe their children would, or their neighbours, or their boss or their friends. And how it was about planting a seed. And how the people in her audience that day she told them they were going to Australia “if you watch the tape you can see that most of them had never even said the WORD Australia and now they’re here and they will be ambassadors for life, and so will I.”

She also said that of the 302 ultimate viewers she brought with her, 200 of them had never before been out of America. Think about it.

Back to Oprah and some questions. Here is the press conference – I only remembered halfway through that I had my decent camera. And I had no pen. And to those who claim I make this shit up, I don’t. I’m just like that. So suck it. I certainly had to.

[press conference video coming – taking forever to upload to youtube…..]

I’m not sure if it was on the tape but the last question was from some guy in the front row who asked her about Wikileaks and Julian Assange! Her face changed immediately – hardened a little bit – but while other people in the audience groaned, she patiently waited for the question to end and then leaned forward to the guy who asked it and said: “I think I’m gonna go do my show now.” And everyone clapped. Relieved that the awkward moment was over.

THE SHOW Well, it was big. Huge. Hard to take in really. I sat in the media section and we were all seated about an hour before the show started. The 200 crew Oprah brought from her production company Harpo were easy to recognise – they were wearing akubras and sneakers and they looked…American. Extremely organised. Unflappable. Unfailingly polite. In fact everything about the whole experience was extraordinarily polite…the audience, the officials…everything.

The music was pumping and everyone got up and had a bit of a dance party, boogying to “I’ve Got A Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, which is pretty impossible NOT to dance to.

Then, to the sounds of Men At Work’s song Land Down Under, she came through the crowd, in a long orange shirt-dress and big hair.

I filmed what I could, with my hand holding my video camera above my head – apologies in advance for any wobbles. It was very bright and I struggled to see anything in my viewfinder….

The show was a strange beast. Lovely in parts, odd in others. It was filmed as if it was live – they’re a tight, well-oiled machine that Harpo crew – and the packages of the audience trips to their 25 destinations around Australia had all been done and looked fabulous.

I guess it’s easy to be a critic of the show’s content – the things that are most identifiable to others about our country may not be those we most closely identify with ourselves (i.e.: Russell Crowe and his football team which he insists on taking everywhere with him). It was also a bit odd when Jay-Z came on the stage for a chat which I just couldn’t make sense of until Oprah threw to a package of a young female teacher who had written to Oprah about her school of underprivileged kids at Canterbury Boys High where most of them came from a non-English speaking background. She spoke about positive role models like Jay-Z and while she read the letter aloud for the camera in front of her boys, suddenly Jay-Z appeared and she nearly passed out. All the boys from the school were inside the opera house and Oprah crossed to them, announcing that they were each receiving a computer and that the school was getting $1m worth of computer equipment thanks to Microsoft.

That was special. Next was that incredible couple from the video – remember he is battling cancer and he made a love video for his wife where Hugh Jackman appeared? She showed a package of that and they came on the stage for a chat and then she gave them a cheque for $250K from Xbox – because he was unable to work and she’d had to go back to work to support the family and they weren’t seeing each other. And they couldn’t pay their bills. Oprah said, “Spend some time together – that’s what counts”.

At that point, I got into an interesting discussion with a couple of journos behind me who were talking about Oprah’s style of making one big splashy gesture instead of spreading her gifts to help lots of people. E.g.: $1m to one school instead of $1000 to 1000 schools. Or $250K to one family fighting cancer instead of $250K to cancer research.

My take on it is this: it’s a philosophical position on philanthropy. You can either change a lot of people’s lives a teeny bit, or fewer people’s lives dramatically. The $250K she gave to that one family will change their lives significantly. Spread over 100 families, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Same with the school. Same with her car giveaway – she could have tried to leverage the same amount of money and given away a million bus tickets but firstly, that wouldn’t have helped anyone change much of anything and secondly, the corporate benefactors who fund these life-changing gifts, are more interested in bigger dramatic gestures.

I think she’s like a modern day Robin Hood – she uses her enormous power and influence to extract cash and goods from massive corporations and redistributes them to people who are struggling. As she says: everything is so much more fun if you share it.

I love that Oprah never apologises for her wealth or her success and never shies away from enjoying it privately or publicly. I love that she’s no saint – she talked about doing tequila shots and when her hair and make-up people came on stage to touch her up in a commercial break, she joked that it takes a village to make her look like this. “I’m sorry for y’all who didn’t have a village who had to be here at 6am!” she said.

Oh, I forgot the interview with the Irwin family. That was interesting. I’m actually posting on Bindi shortly but I was surprised to hear that she was 12. She looks it too. Still cute as a button and self-possessed as always. Not precocious particularly, just a smart, confident little girl. Her brother Robert was a big star though – sounds just like his dad and was hilarious. When he spoke about how he watches his dad’s videos every day and how ‘he was the best man in the world’ (I’m going to say that those bits sounded a little contrived), Terri promptly burst into tears. Real tears “Ugly tears” as Oprah calls them (she says she burst into ugly tears when she saw her “O” on the harbour bridge).

I was left with the impression they were a very close, grounded family trying to get on with it in the shadow of an enormous loss that’s still so keenly felt.

It was really really hot in the forecourt. We all started wilting a little and I can’t say Jon Bon Jovi did much to perk me up. But overall, it was a terrific experience; a great show and I’ll be watching whenever it airs. Sydney was having one of it’s show –off days where it gets all fancy pants with the sun shining off the sparkly harbour and the bridge and Opera House looking amazing.

As we left – with vouchers for a free pearl necklace – Oprah got out of her car and came over to the crowds gathered at the barriers just where I was walking past. I didn’t even realise it was her because the crowd was so quiet. See what I mean about polite? There’s a real reverence that goes with her. No mindless screaming.

It’s been a busy we