The End of Soap Oprah

"The passing of the Oprah Winfrey Show is surely worthy of being described with that most overworked of clichés, as 'the end of an era.' Except, of course, it is not the end of an era so much as the morphing of Ms. Winfrey’s career into a new form. It is hard to imagine that the public has seen the last of her, and the values and culture that her show represented are here for the foreseeable future."

In his contribution to the March edition of Tabletalk, Carl Trueman writes about Oprah's wide-reaching influence in our culture. "I well remember one of my sisters raving about how 'Oprah says this, Oprah says that!' in the late nineteen-eighties, which I expect was about the time her show was starting to enjoy international success. At the time, I assumed it was just another bland American show, designed to showcase beautiful people with vast wealth and minimal personality. In fact, of course, the program proved to be far more than that. It was not simply the chat-show equivalent of a soap opera, designed to fill a few idle moments that the viewing public might have in an afternoon; it became a powerful force within wider society."

Read what he has to say in The End of Soap Oprah.