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Business Movers
Oprah's Empire | Former OWN Executive Scott Garner on Oprah Winfrey And The Evolution of Television | 5
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- [00:00]
Lindsey Graham
Want to get more from business movers? Subscribe to Wondery for early access to new episodes, ad free listening and exclusive content you can't find anywhere else. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's 2018 on a soundstage at CBS Studios in Los Angeles, California. Oprah Winfrey looks over her notes, refreshing herself on her lines for her latest primetime special on The CBS show 60 Minutes. She glances up at the director, who signals that they're ready when she is. She nods, jogging her papers together on the desk, and then looks straight down the camera. It's not the same atmosphere as on her old talk show. In fact, it reminds Oprah of her unhappy early days when she worked as a television news anchor. It's not a pleasant feeling, but she's a professional. So taking a deep breath, she begins, Tonight we're talking about trauma informed care. I'll speak with Dr. Bruce Perry about why the question is not what's wrong with you, but what happened to you? This story has had more of an impact on me than anything I've ever covered. So stick with us. I'm Oprah Winfrey. The director calls out from behind the camera. Cut. Okay, great. Let's just take it one more time. Can we say it a little straighter? It was just a bit too much emotion. Too much emotion? Yeah. When you said Oprah Winfrey. That's my name. How else am I supposed to say it? Try flattening your voice a little. Oprah can't believe what she's hearing. This really is like she's back in Baltimore being told that she's too involved in the subject again. Okay, well, we can try again. Just the last line, right. This story has had more of an impact on me than anything I've ever covered, so stick with us. I'm Oprah Winfrey. Oprah looks up at the director, and he grimaces, shaking his head. Sorry. Let's one more time. You're still putting too much emotion behind your name. Is there too much emotion on the Oprah part or the whimpery part? I think it's maybe just where you're coming from. The story seems to matter a lot to you. Well, obviously I just said this story has more of an impact on me than anything I've ever covered. Well, that's true, but the CBS style is a little more straightforward. CBS hired me. This is who I am. It is, but I just know the notes I'm going to get. It's fine. I'll try it again. Ready? The director nods and signals the cameras to start rolling once more. I'm Oprah Winfrey. I'm Oprah Winfrey. I'm Oprah. You know, can we just take a break?
- [02:49]
Scott Garner
Sure.
- [02:50]
Lindsey Graham
Yeah. Okay, everyone take five. The director walks onto the set where Oprah sits. Why don't we have a little practice, just the two of us. I'm Oprah Winfrey. Just like that. I'm Oprah Winfrey. Oprah is silent for a moment, and then she gets up. You know what? You are not Oprah Winfrey. I am. And I know how to do this better than anyone else. So no, I won't flatten my voice. Emotion is part of my brand. And if that doesn't work for cbs, I'll take my talents elsewhere. It wasn't long after this before Oprah Winfrey left her role as a special contributor at 60 Minutes. She'd come a long way since her earliest days on television, and she had no intention of letting anyone tell her how to live her life, conduct her business or act in front of the camera. She refused to dull her personality for the sake of someone else's brand. Not when she knew knew the power of her own business Movers is sponsored by Grammarly.
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- [04:34]
Lindsey Graham
Grammarly Enterprise Ready AI Business Movers is sponsored by the Walker Webcast. If you're looking to learn more about commercial real estate, entrepreneurship, leadership and the economy, where would you turn? Well, a good start might be the CEO of one of the largest commercial real estate, finance and advisory services firms in the nation. But how are you ever going to get on their calendar? Ah, you don't have to tune into the Walker Webcast, hosted by Willie Walker, CEO of Walker and Dunlap, an unparalleled leader in commercial real estate. Listen in on conversations with guests like a Rod economist Dr. Peter Lindemann and Walker and Dunlap experts. Learn more@walkerdunlup.com podcast and be sure to follow Walker and Dunlop on all your favorite social media channels. That's walkerdunlup.com podcast. The Walker webcast insights for life from WonderEat. I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is Business Movers. Oprah Winfrey had been a mainstay of American television for four decades. Her eponymous daytime program, the Oprah Winfrey show, began national syndication in the mid-1980s when it was broadcast on more than 120 channels to 10 million viewers every day. Her talk show was the most successful of its kind. But what made Oprah a business icon was what she did when the cameras were switched off. Her deal to buy the Oprah Winfrey show from ABC was unique. No other talk show host had ever made such a bold move, not Phil Donahue, not Jerry Springer. After all, it was easier just to be hired talent and let the network sort out the business side of things. But Oprah wanted complete control, and she wasn't afraid to bet on herself to get it. Over the years that followed, Oprah's media empire steadily expanded to include a film production studio, a TV channel and a magazine. But at the heart of everything she did was herself. She was the brand, the marketer, the product and the producer all rolled into one. The close grip she exerted over her image and her string of canny deals paid off. In 2003, Oprah became the world's first black female billionaire, and her wealth has only grown in the years since. But it wasn't all smooth sailing. After finally bringing the curtain down on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2011, her next endeavor struggled. The Oprah Winfrey Network suffered from disappointing ratings in its first year, and Oprah worried that she might have bitten off more than she could chew. But she quickly overcame those fears and threw herself into this new challenge. And once again, she would take control, set a new course, and steer the Oprah Winfrey Network towards success. Here to talk about the rise of Oprah Winfrey and the evolution of television during her years on the air is former OWN network executive Scott Garner. Our conversation is next. Scott Garner, thank you for speaking with me today on Business Movers.
- [07:51]
Scott Garner
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
- [07:53]
Lindsey Graham
So I'd love for you to start by telling us a little bit about your journey. How did you come to work at Oprah Winfrey Network?
- [08:00]
Scott Garner
So my journey is interesting because I was a teenager, I guess, in the 80s, and so I always Grew up really sort of idolizing people that were so part of the popular culture. I'm a big Prince fan, but I also love some other musicians, such as Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. But then when Oprah came on the scene in the mid-80s, I started watching it with fascination. And it's funny because I actually got my mom, who was working, hooked on it. So we started recording the show that continued even as I went to college. There were two pivotal moments for me with regard to Oprah. And I think in 1989, I had been a freshman in college, and I had gained a lot of weight. And that was the year that she did her Optifast, which was the weight loss medication. And my parents saw that episode. They put me on Optifast. I lost weight, and I've pretty much been my same body weight since then. So that was one. The second was I decided as a personal goal when I moved to Los Angeles in the early 2000s, that I wanted to run a marathon. And I knew that Oprah had ran a marathon. And so I used. I looked up what her time was on her marathon that she ran, and I used that as a personal mile marker of the time I should shoot for. And she beat me. But I've always thought of her as just this monumental star, but also this real person. And throughout my career of working in television, both in kids television and women's television, all paths kind of ended up leading to oprah. And in 2011, when she launched the Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN, I was invited to be part of that because it launched very successfully on the first few days, and then it fell off the cliff in the ratings. And so they brought me in a few months later to, you know, to help them steer the ship the right way. And so I spent seven and a half years working full time at the Oprah Winfrey Network. Then I went back and got my PhD. I decided I was going to write my dissertation on Oprah. And so while I was doing my dissertation, they called me back up and asked me if I wanted to be a consultant. And I said, I'll be a consultant for you, but as long as I might be able to get access to some of the archival databases that you have so that I can enrich my dissertation.
- [10:28]
Lindsey Graham
So you are entrenched in the Oprah industry here. That's fantastic. How did Oprah Winfrey Network find you? What expertise were they looking for that you demonstrated?
- [10:37]
Scott Garner
I was previously working at Lifetime Television for women, and they were looking for somebody who had experience in working for women's programming channel and ironically, Lifetime was. I was in contract renewal with them and they were asking me to move from LA back to New York, which I had lived in in my early 20s and where I started my career. For me, it was a no brainer. And everyone, because the network was doing so poorly, everyone was like, it's going to fold. And I'm like, I don't bet against.
- [11:08]
Lindsey Graham
Oprah, nor should you. Looking back at the beginning of Oprah's career, if we can turn our focus to her, what made the 1980s perhaps an ideal environment for her meteoric rise?
- [11:20]
Scott Garner
I think that the thing that she did was she was a new and fresh face into the daytime circuit. And she also approached her show with a bunch of different tenets such as intention, mindfulness, curiosity and self empowerment. But it always had an entertainment value to it. So you always had celebrities. And the show Monday through Friday was programmed to hit different notes. So they may have a celebrity show one day, the next day they may do some kind of traumatic episode around something that's happening in popular culture. And for me, it was just that she was kind of hitting all of these notes and, you know, she was just soaring in the ratings. I think her access to talent and bringing talent to Chicago at a time, and even still now, where the talent polls are, really New York and Los Angeles, and she brought them to Chicago and everybody wanted to be on her show, whether it was to promote a movie or a cause, or just even, you know, from an audience standpoint, be part of the audience experience that she.
- [12:25]
Lindsey Graham
Offered at the time of her start in daytime tv. The king, of course, was Phil Donahue, and he's a very different presenter than Oprah. He's also a white male and Oprah is a black female. How groundbreaking was Oprah's appearance on television in this regard?
- [12:40]
Scott Garner
I think it's interesting because I think what we saw in the 1980s happening is you basically had Oprah, Michael Jordan, Prince and Michael Jackson, and they basically mainstreamed black culture into, you know, popular culture. And I think that Oprah's ability to do that, and she's kind of the only female that I would mention. I mean, maybe Whitney Houston. But I still think that Oprah as a person was a bigger. She just was a bigger personality in the sense that she kind of had everything in the sense that she was able to articulate what the country was feeling at the time and be able to, you know, comfort them, be able to make them feel joy, be able to, you know, showcase things that they may not have thought of. And. And that led really to some of the biggest, what I would call franchises that she had on her show, such as Oprah's Favorite Things. She did a number of shows on child molestation. She did a number of shows on abused women and relationships. And I just think that she was hitting a cultural touch point that wasn't there at the time. And so to your point earlier, Phil Donahue definitely was an icon in the daytime space, and he was also in Chicago. And, you know, she kind of set out early on to make that her goal. You know, I've read, you know, a couple of different articles across time where, you know, when she was making the Color Purple, she told Steven Spielberg that, you know, I'm doing this show and, you know, I think it's going to be huge. And he was kind of like, well, we'll see. But the thing is, is she just has this incredible inner anchor that allows her to both be who she is, connect with the audience, as well as connect with whomever she may be interviewing.
- [14:28]
Lindsey Graham
Now, after her first few years of success and into her, I guess, second decade of the show, Oprah witnessed a large period of media consolidation, the advent of cable television, and really the daytime television landscape changing altogether. How did she manage this industry shift?
- [14:44]
Scott Garner
I can't speak completely to that, but like I would say, you know, she definitely was very self aware of how things were shifting in terms of cable television, the advent of the Internet, and you know, even still at the time, in the 90s, late 90s, the regular consumption of print magazines. And so she basically became the queen of all media in a lot of ways.
- [15:10]
Lindsey Graham
I asked how she might have been impacted by the change in the industry, but I guess I can ask the question in reverse. How do you think Oprah changed the television landscape at the time?
- [15:20]
Scott Garner
Well, that's interesting because I really was fascinated when I was working at OWN in understanding how to connect an audience when you don't have her in the show. And one of the things that she just had is this sort of fingerprint on. She would read every script. She was the ultimate green light for any kind of a show. She treated and trained her staff at Harpo very much the same way they were always after. You know, obviously big gets. I think the one that slipped away was, if I recall, was the O.J. simpson during the 90s. But she's just got this innate sensibility to really just understand the relationship of the topic and how to connect it to the audience. And part of that is her own Curiosity.
- [16:16]
Lindsey Graham
Of course, Oprah is known for much more than just her daytime television show. You, of course, work for her television network and she's built a much wider business empire. I wonder, is that driven by her curiosity or ambition? Or what is the matrix of drivers that you think has led to Oprah's success?
- [16:33]
Scott Garner
Well, so it's interesting, in my dissertation research that I did on Oprah Winfrey, I did a meta analysis of her 25 years of the talk show. And the meta analysis that I did looked at the guests that were on the show, the topics of a particular show, and the audience ratings of a show. And what I found was that there were three key drivers. One was gender. So obviously the gender obviously tips to female more than male. But that's not to say she wasn't something for everybody. The second one that they were driven by was conflict, and the third one was celebrity. But some of the tertiary drivers were stories that she did on health, stories that she did on image, stories that she did on being your best self. And I think that that's one of the things that she's really above and beyond curiosity. She's really about living your best life, doing no harm and being able to, you know, offer the rest of the world a sense of humanity and compassion.
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- [19:29]
Lindsey Graham
That gives us an idea of how Oprah's personality drives her editorial decisions, how she's built her show to appeal to a broad audience and gain acceptance from that audience. But she's built this business empire across all sorts of aspects of media and become much more than a TV personality. She's become a mogul and a brand.
- [19:46]
Scott Garner
And that's something that she struggled with for a long time. She struggled with recognizing herself as a brand. And that's not to say that's a bad thing. I think, you know, she just saw the show having different, you know, kind of, if you think about it as the show as the sort of head of the octopus, she wanted to have different kind of tentacles. So that's why, why she launched the network. That's why she did the magazine. That's why she started this school for girls in South Africa. She was really about legacy. And I think that legacy plays a big part of her sort of business sensibilities in the sense that she, you know, doesn't have children. But, you know, I think the children that she has are all of the people that grew up with her, still follow her and care immensely about what she has to say now.
- [20:34]
Lindsey Graham
Of course it all started though with her daytime talk TV show. And those types of shows are not receiving the sort of ratings they once did. What do you think the decline of traditional daytime talk says about changes in consumer habits and media consumption? Is it just the technological landscape of the day?
- [20:51]
Scott Garner
Well, I think that, you know, in the 80s broadcast was still the predominant driver. And then as we got into the early 90s, the beginning of multi channel cable universes begin to explode. You know, her show ran from 1986 to May 2011. She did a total of 4561 hours of TV. And I believe that ultimately she was really focused on continuing to make the show as good as she could. And she talked specifically about this one episode in the early 90s where she interviewed Neo Nazis in America. And she said that she wanted to stop the show because she realized that she was giving the Neo Nazis a platform and that from that point on that she wanted to do better. So that is sort of the beginning of when we start to see her programming strategy of the talk show. And that talk show still was successful, but again, as the cable universe continued to grow, it became less and less strong in terms of the Nielsen ratings. But that said, you know, she cared, but she just kept on going. And you know, her tenacity is more fierce than I think any ones I've ever seen.
- [22:10]
Lindsey Graham
Now, it's probably the case that the decline in ratings and just the age of the show were two of the large reasons why Oprah decided to move on and bring her show to an end. But we spoke about legacy. So I'd like to know what you think the legacy of the Oprah Winfrey show is today.
- [22:27]
Scott Garner
I think that the Oprah Winfrey show, which has now been off air for about 12 years, but I think that, you know, she basically wanted to go out on a high note and she had been doing that. And she said, you know, I sat in this chair for 25 years and I want to go on and do other things. And so, you know, she segued into managing the network where she didn't have to have sort of an ever presence of sitting in the chair. She just still had social capital with the audience.
- [22:54]
Lindsey Graham
And Oprah Winfrey Network, which you were with from very early on, launched in 2011, how different an experience was working there. I guess coming in at a ground level, you know, a brand new enterprise, having worked already at a more established companies like Nickelodeon or Disney Channel, et cetera.
- [23:13]
Scott Garner
It was challenging because like I said, the show launched for the first couple of days with stellar ratings, but then it quickly fell off. And I think it's different when you have one hour a day, five days a week of putting the show together versus program 24 hours. And so what happened was, you know, we quickly started to look at the audience that were coming to the cable network and what we realized, it was really the black female audience. And so we enhanced our programming strategy and began to laser focus very much like what I had done at Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, laser focus on that target that can, you know, help sustainability, interest. And basically what we did was we started developing both scripted as well as unscripted shows that targeted that audience. Now occasionally we would do some specials that would, you know, be bigger and she would still do some, you know, pivotal interviews. She interviewed Lance Armstrong when I was there, Beyonce, and she interviewed a number of people. And that was one of the things that, you know, she was still keen to do. But again, that's not sitting in the chair five days a week. That's her doing a shoot that she specifically wanted to do on a specific topic.
- [24:29]
Lindsey Graham
This is interesting to me, and I know you don't have complete visibility into the early planning days of own, but you can imagine that with an Oprah backed enterprise, lots of thought and planning went into exactly what sort of programming, what sort of launch plan, how you're going to market it, who your audience is going to be, but then to within just days figure out that all of this was either misconceived or misapprehended, something must have changed. Explain to me, I guess naively, how that could have happened, or is this just part of the business?
- [25:00]
Scott Garner
I think it's twofold. I think definitely one, it's part of the business. I mean, at the time that she launched the network, there were over 100 cable channels. And even though the network's footprint at the time had about around 80 to 90 million cables, homes watching it that had access to it. You know, you're competing with a number of other things and I think that that was a challenge. But you know, in the early days, the, the template was really, you know, driven off of the success of the O magazine. And the O magazine is lifestyle magazine. And so it had a lot of lifestyle components. And it's different to flip through a magazine when you have a limited period of time, but to actually sit down and commit to, you know, 30 minutes on how to organize your house or weight loss, I think that that becomes a little bit of a challenge. And it's not like she's there doing that. These are more unscripted shows that used many of her acolytes to help prop the network up. We had a number of people from Nate Berkus, Carson Kressley, a number of different people who were sort of in her orbit there to help. And we acquired episodes of Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz and we acquired episod of Rachael Ray and none of those were working. And so that was when we made the pivotal decision to, like I said, laser focus on the key people that were driving what ratings we were getting at the time. And it was at that moment that it changed. So rather than focus on the 24 hours, we used the daytime as kind of filler and ended repeat of primetime. And primetime was largely original. And so the original primetime material tended to be stories that would be of interest to black women. And you know, we started with unscripted, but we quickly went into scripted programming. And one of the things that helped us a lot was a relationship with Tyler Perry. And he said, you know, your. Your network is good, but you need to have some fun. And she's like, okay, well, why don't you come and work with us? And. And so he ended up doing a couple of shows for us, and they were wildly successful in terms of critical as well as, you know, awards.
- [27:24]
Lindsey Graham
I'm interested in this moment. It's not quite a pivot. It's a double down, isn't it? You realize that the audience you have is a certain type, and you want to cater your programming to that audience. It seems like there's another option for you to broaden your appeal and get a smaller portion of a larger pie. What are the pros and cons? How did you make this decision?
- [27:44]
Scott Garner
I think it was in the network's best interest to make it succeed. And I think that she also, like I said earlier, you don't bet against her. And so it was personal determination or self determination to actually make sure that she was able to sort of turn the ship around. And so it became very much a personal challenge to her. And that was something that she used not only for herself and her sort of internal compass, but she used it to rally the staff at the network. And so that turnaround is all a result of her sort of vision. And. And I remember her calling me early on and saying, what do you think? And I put this back to, look, I'm a white CIS gay male and I program Kids Network. I do not have kids. But I said, I understand the audience. And she goes, that's exactly what I want. Different points of view. But she said, I want to never forget who the audience is. Who the audience is.
- [28:51]
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- [30:21]
Lindsey Graham
And so it was that impulse, that instinct, I guess, that Oprah had, that she had some sort of audience and Oprah wanted to pursue them more completely rather than find more and different audiences.
- [30:33]
Scott Garner
Yeah, she was like, let's focus on them first and then we can broaden. And to this day, she still is trying to broaden with the Oprah Winfrey Network. But I think that ultimately the sweet spot for the network in terms of its rating success in the later years became driven by that focus.
- [30:53]
Lindsey Graham
So how much of an evolution was there during your time at the network? Were there opportunities to broaden? Did own become everything you expected it to be?
- [31:00]
Scott Garner
It did in many ways. What was fascinating was every now and then we would try something and it didn't work. And it wasn't like we viewed it as a failure. It was like, well, we shined a light on something and you know, not as many people tuned in. And that was the point where we were putting stuff on streaming or VOD and you know, on those platforms it found an audience. So that was again another sort of tentacle where she realized that some of this stuff that we were doing that maybe didn't work on the channel could have shelf life elsewhere. And that led to some of the stuff that she's done for Netflix. She still does stuff for cbs. And I think she's done a couple of things for ABC recently. I think that that really keys into her business sensibility. She has this instinct of if I'm doing this interview, where should it air? So is it primarily airing on the Oprah network, or am I going to get bigger reach for the audience by putting it on CBS and having the network take a window?
- [32:06]
Lindsey Graham
Looking back, do you have a proudest moment working at home?
- [32:10]
Scott Garner
From a business standpoint, I think the proudest moment was what I would call the 2013 turnaround. And that was when we started to gain traction because we had already done some unscripted shows targeting African American females. But when we put the Tyler Perry stuff on and Oprah helped co promote it with Tyler on air, that was extremely pleasing to see. But then when we actually looked back on the success that we gained, we were just, like, really awestruck by how much power it had. It was just successful to see how small ideas make a big difference, but also not only make a big difference in terms of garnering a consumer audience, but in terms of giving the world another glimpse at something they may have missed the first time. And it became something that really touched me because, like I said earlier, I'm a huge Prince fan. And when he passed away in 2016, we put the show that she did in 1997 or 98 on air, and that was, like, super fast. He passed away on a Thursday, and we had the show on the air on Friday night. And it was just really how much she cared about some of her celebrity friends, made a big difference. But some of the initiatives that she's also done, she did a 2020 campaign called Own youn Vote. And we specifically did research, and I was a consultant here in 2020, and we did research around how do you encourage African American or black women to get out and vote? And that was really monumental and successful. Some of the stuff that she's done with men of, you know, child abuse or sexual abuse, and she worked with her friend Tyler on that. These kinds of things just show how much of, you know, a good human she is.
- [34:17]
Lindsey Graham
You know, everyone in the country across the globe knows that Oprah Winfrey is a consummate entertainer. But I think in listening to this conversation with you, it should be obvious how much of a superlative businesswoman she is as well. You're constantly saying, she says she did. She decided she figured out, I just want to, you know, for our audience who still might be thinking that Oprah is just a great television personality, convince us that she's also a great business person.
- [34:44]
Scott Garner
She's a great business person in many ways in terms of both looking at, you know, even from a programming standpoint, she would look at the content and say, you know, I really want to do this, and I want to roll the dice. So we're going to go over budget, and I need you to go find me the money to do this, because I believe in. And she also really takes care of, from a philanthropy standpoint, making sure that she transfers the, you know, humane side into initiatives that she believes in. And I think that one of the things that she's done, obviously she was, you know, multi platform before multi platform was a word. And she's the one that I think people still really attach themselves to or whatever she says is extremely salient. Now, people are obviously, they can take it or leave it, but she still has that fingerprint.
- [35:38]
Lindsey Graham
So what do you think of Oprah in the future? She's recently turned 70. She's been a billionaire for 20 years. She can still speak to everyday Americans pretty much the same way she has. But can that continue?
- [35:51]
Scott Garner
Nothing continues forever. I mean, we all, you know, we're all born and we all die. I think that, like, what she wants to do in this stage of her life is to continue to be as generative as possible. Whether that is, you know, talking about, you know, I think the ABC interview that I watched, I want to say earlier this year where she talked about semi glutide drugs after she struggled with her weight for such a long time. I think that's really meaningful. Some of the things that she's done with the recent elections, both in 2020 and 20, you know, she is still part of the cultural conversation, and I think she wants to be part of that, but she still wants to have fun. You know, she still continues even though the magazine is no longer around. She still has a really strong online presence. And, you know, her Favorite Things franchise just came out again. When she has somebody that she wants to talk to, you know, I think she thinks mindfully about, like, where is this going to best reach the audience? Is it going to be on a Netflix program? Is it going to be on abc? Is it going to be on CBS where she just sits down and maybe talks to Gayle Keane? I think she's just very astute with knowing how to steer audiences to the best place that she can possibly steer them to.
- [37:09]
Lindsey Graham
Now, of course, there is only one Oprah Winfrey, and the rest of us just have to pretend or aspire. I'd love for you to tell us what lessons our listeners can take from the story of Oprah Winfrey to apply to their businesses.
- [37:21]
Scott Garner
I think again, I think that, like, you know, you can look at sort of what I would call the more higher mind or critical thinking things. And I think that you can think about it in the terms of intention and mindfulness and curiosity and self empowerment. But I think that more than anything, what we need to understand is that there is a strong emotional bond that the world still has with her. And I think that, you know, the fandom that she's generated over the last couple of, you know, or the last decade or so is just something that is sort of indelible. And she's able to really bring that to life, even though she's, like I said, not sitting in the chair five days a week. So, you know, she may handpick what she wants to do. Just like she handpicks the favorite things, she chooses what she wants to do and she ultimately wants to make a meaningful impact. But at the end of the day, she was an entrepreneur very, very early on. And you know, I think one of the things that we have to recognize is she was a black female entrepreneur that had this incredible amount of self determination and self awareness. And I think that what she's been able to do in terms of navigating both Hollywood and as well as as, you know, just her audience in general and, you know, politics to some degree. She's just got this innate sensibility and I hope she's around a lot longer because I can't take another heartbreak.
- [39:01]
Lindsey Graham
Well, I hope that heartbreak doesn't come anytime soon. Scott Garner, thank you for speaking with me today on Business Movers.
- [39:07]
Scott Garner
Thank you so much, Lindsay.
- [39:08]
Lindsey Graham
That was my conversation with the former Oprah Winfrey Network executive of Scott Yarn from Wondery. This is the final episode of our series on Oprah Winfrey on the next season of Business Moves, a Christmas special. A mother daughter firm from Atlanta, Georgia tries to turn a family tradition into a profitable business. But the elf on the shelf will struggle to find a place in the festive season until its fortunes are transformed by what seems like a Christmas miracle. If you like Business Movers, you can unlock exclusive episodes found nowhere else on Wondery plus and access new episodes early and ad free. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a survey@wondery.com survey if you'd like to learn more about Oprah Winfrey, we recommend a biography by Kitty Kelly, LifeLine Biography's Oprah Winfrey, Global Media Leader by Katherine Krohn and WBEZ Chicago's Makingover A quick note about our dramatizations. In most cases, we can't know everything that happened, but all our reenactments are based on historical research. Business Movers is hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship Audio editing by Mohammed Shahzib sound design by Gabriel Gould music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written and researched by Alex Burns, coordinating producer, and Jake Sampson. Executive producers are William Simpson for airship and Aaron O'Flaherty, Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louie for Wondering.
- [40:47]
Grinch
From Wondery and Dr. Seuss from high atop Mount Crumpet. Tis the Grinch holiday podcast. Tonight's special guest he's the big mouth behind Big Mouth and you can see him in the Christmas blockbuster Red one in theaters and available to stream on Prime Video now. Funnyman Nick Kroll Hey Nicky, how you doing?
- [41:12]
Nick Kroll
Good. How are you Grinch?
- [41:13]
Grinch
Oh, I'm pretty good. I'm doing pretty good today, buddy. Are you finding everything okay in here?
- [41:18]
Nick Kroll
Yeah, it's been awesome. Thanks so much.
- [41:20]
Grinch
This is gonna be fun.
- [41:21]
Nick Kroll
Yeah, I think we're gonna have fun. I'm really excited. I was a little nervous cause you're quite an intimidating character. But I feel like we've had some good chemistry here in this pre interview and I think it'll be fun. 1 Whoa.
- [41:30]
Grinch
All right, let's save it for the interview. Follow tis the Grinch holiday Podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad free by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery App, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.