Tabloid Talk Show - After Oprah

After Oprah

After the success of The Oprah Winfrey Show, many imitators began to appear, and by the time Winfrey negotiated the most lucrative deal in television (a deal that would eventually make her the richest African American of the 20th century and the world's only black billionaire for three straight years), the television industry exploded with copycats, each competing to be more edgy and provocative than the last. 1991 alone saw four tabloid talk show debuts: The Jerry Springer Show, The Jenny Jones Show, The Maury Povich Show, and The Montel Williams Show. In 1993, Ricki Lake debuted her own show. With the abundance of these new shows, each of them was forced to compete with each other for higher ratings, leading to the shows covering increasingly outrageous topics in an effort to lure viewers.

Future Congressman Bob Turner, in his capacity as CEO of Multimedia Entertainment, was particularly integral to the development of the format, having launched Springer's show in 1991 and guided pre-tabloid shows such as Donahue and Sally (hosted by Sally Jessy Raphael since 1983) into the tabloid era (Turner also oversaw more politically oriented talk shows hosted by Dennis Prager and Rush Limbaugh that did not follow the tabloid format). Turner oversaw the sale of Multimedia to Gannett, who in turn sold the talk show assets to what would eventually become modern NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal continues to produce the majority of tabloid talk shows still in production, including the Springer and Povich shows, the latter of which NBC acquired in 1998. After Turner's departure, he worked on introducing the format to the UK through his association with Pearson plc.