OPRAH’S POPULARITY NOSEDIVES AFTER OBAMA ENDORSEMENT

[The Politico]

Much hay was made nearly a year ago when Oprah Winfrey announced that she would support — and campaign for — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. But what has received far less attention is the impact Oprah’s endorsement has had on her own popularity. Long considered the “queen of daytime TV,” Oprah Winfrey has enjoyed sky-high popularity as a media personality for two decades. “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” launched in September 1986, is currently the longest-running daytime program on television and is the highest-rated talk show in American television history.

Within six months of when “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was launched, 85 percent of Americans already knew of Oprah, and her favorability with Americans had already reached 61 percent, according to an April 1987 survey conducted by Times Mirror.

Ten years following the launch of her talk show, the January 1996 Survey on American Political Culture found that more than three-quarters (78 percent) of Americans held a favorable opinion of Oprah.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Oprah announced on CNN’s “Larry King Live” on May 1, 2007, that she would officially endorse her longtime friend Barack Obama for the presidency — the first time she had ever thrown her support behind a political candidate.

Almost instantly, Oprah’s popularity in America plummeted, The Politico reports today.

“But by the time Fox News/Opinion Dynamics asked Americans about their attitudes toward Oprah in a survey conducted about 10 days later, Dec. 18-19, Oprah’s favorability ratings had dropped even further — to 55 percent — the lowest level of favorability ever registered for Oprah in opinion surveys. Oprah’s negatives also spiked, with one in three respondents (33 percent) reporting unfavorable impressions of her.

“The results of a March 26, 2008, AOL Television popularity poll of television hosts reveal Americans may now embrace Ellen DeGeneres over Oprah by a wide margin. Forty-six percent of the 1.35 million people who participated in the poll said the daytime talk show host that “made their day” was Ellen, compared with only 19 percent who chose Oprah. Nearly half (47 percent) said they would rather dine with Ellen, compared “with 14 percent who preferred Oprah.”