Oprah Winfrey: Media Mogul and Founder of OWN
Business Owner · Media & Entertainment
Oprah Winfrey rose from poverty in rural Mississippi to host The Oprah Winfrey Show for 25 years and build a media empire including the Oprah Winfrey Network. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
About Oprah Winfrey: Media Mogul and Founder of OWN
Oprah Gail Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey on January 29, 1954) is an American media mogul, actress, executive producer, author and television personality, dubbed the "Queen of All Media". She is best known for The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. She is the richest Black woman and the wealthiest female celebrity, was the richest African-American of the 20th century, and was once the world's only Black billionaire; in 2026 she was named the greatest living self-made American. Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a single teenage mother and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee, before being sent to live with Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Nashville, Tennessee, whom she calls her father. She landed a job in radio while still in high school and by 19 was co-anchor of the local evening news. Her emotional, extemporaneous delivery led to a move into daytime talk, and after lifting a third-rated Chicago talk show to first place she launched her own production company. Credited with creating a more intimate, confessional form of media communication, she revolutionized the tabloid talk-show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue and by the mid-1990s reinvented her show around literature, self-improvement, mindfulness and spirituality. She has been criticized for unleashing a confession culture and promoting controversial self-help ideas, and praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. Her endorsement of Barack Obama was estimated to be worth about one million votes in the 2008 Democratic primaries, and in the same year she formed the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994, and has won 19 Daytime Emmy Awards. Sources: English Wikipedia (Oprah Winfrey, accessed September 2026).
Basic Information
Founder and Chair, Harpo Productions; founder, Oprah Winfrey Network
Company Details
Harpo Productions / OWN
Media, Television, Publishing
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