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Face it, Americans love to talk. After all, the telephone, the microphone and even the cell phone were invented here. When you add it all up, we're probably the most yap-happy people in the history of the world. Heck, this year we'll throw away more than 100 million cell phones, after simply talking them into the ground.Every once in a while, though, if the talk is smart, or funny, or both, most of us are willing to sit back and just listen. Which is a good thing, because for a change there's actually something to hear: We're in the midst of a Renaissance of that most American pop culture vehicle, the TV talk show. Our choices range from the superstars of the medium -- Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil McGraw and, since last season, Ellen DeGeneres -- to a crop of newcomers, including longtime anchorwoman Jane Pauley, sitcom star Tony Danza and erstwhile tennis bad boy John McEnroe, to name three. Seldom have so many talked so much about...
Were you going to say "so little"? Well, don't. While viewers encounter heaps of fluff on talk shows (Gwyneth Paltrow's little Apple springs to mind), the best of the new programs have more going for them than idle chitchat. Dr. Phil -- his PhD is in clinical psychology -- probes the mistakes, bad habits and wounded psyches of his guests, and lays out commonsense prescriptions to save a marriage or even a life. PBS's Charlie Rose leaps headlong into the toughest political, social and economic ideas. And through her book club, Oprah has induced close to one million people to read Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy's romantic Russian masterpiece, which she recommended in May. Not exactly lightweight. Says McGraw, "Being bubbly and nice isn't enough. You need to have something to say."
And for the most part these hosts do. The format of many of the new shows is heavier on self-help and service, lighter on snappy one-liners. Pauley says she intends to tackle all kinds of topics including health and technology, and dispense gotta-know hints, like how to organize the chaos of everyday life. Another rookie talker, Pat Croce, former president and still part-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, will travel the country in a Winnebago, using his skills as a "life coach" to fix his guests' everyday problems.
None of this is rocket science, nor does it break any new journalistic or entertainment ground. But if there's no Edward R. Murrow or Johnny Carson in the group, there's also not -- so far -- a second coming of Morton Downey, Jr., or Jerry Springer to stir up the screaming, chair-throwing, DNA testing end of the talk-show pool.
Talk may be cheap, but when it's done well it can pay some very big bills. As everyone in the English-speaking world knows, Oprah has parlayed her back-patting, you-go-girl message into an empire (TV, films, magazines) estimated at more than $1 billion. And the people who run TV stations are big believers in talk: Last spring, rights to broadcast Pauley's one-hour show quickly sold in 148 of the top 150 U.S. TV markets.
Still, hosting a talker is a perilous game. Even being famous doesn't guarantee success -- something like 80 percent of new shows fail. For every Ellen DeGeneres there's a Magic Johnson. (Remember his short-lived 1998 show? Neither did we until our librarians looked it up.) So how to separate the great talk from the blah-blah-blah? Well, they don't call us Reader's Digest for nothing. Here's our new-season guide to the talk you really should hear.
Oprah Winfrey
What you get
Personal empowerment with a dab of celebrity news.
Strong suit
"She's got a great ability to see things through the viewers' eyes," says Dr. Phil.
We wish she wouldn't
Be so coy about when she'll tie the knot with longtime honey Stedman Graham.
"There's Oprah and then there's everyone else -- she's in a class all her own," says McGraw. It's been that way from the beginning for Winfrey. At 50, the girl who grew up dirt poor in Mississippi now has the highest-rated talk show in TV history. "My mission has always been to educate, uplift and enlighten," Winfrey says, "and I believe you have to do this, and do it well, to earn the public's trust -- only then can you connect."
Winfrey earned that trust by allowing viewers into virtually every inch of her life, disclosing her childhood sexual abuse, her fierce battles with her weight and, in a shocking 1995 admission, even confessing she had used cocaine.
The strategy paid off, and today Winfrey has assumed the role of the older, wiser sister for millions of people. Her show has evolved from a more traditional talk format into one that plays to her strengths and her audience's needs. She spends hours on-air exploring family and relationship issues, for instance, and can almost always draw on anecdotes from her own life to illustrate them.
She does some show biz, like spending an entire hour with the cast of Spider-Man 2, but she also scores big-name authors, including former President Bill Clinton. "I use television to help people see themselves in others," Winfrey says, "and to affect change in their own lives. My show helps to open people's minds to all the possibilities in life."
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