Though she’s not a sports journalist, nor an investigator on the rank of those on “60 Minutes,” which broke other parts of the story, Oprah Winfrey has acquired a reputation as a national confessor — the place for the disgraced and shamed public figure can come clean and seek some sort of absolution from a woman some have followed with near-religious fervor.
Yet there’s also a corporate synergy at work deep below the spectacle of the two day event entitled “Oprah and Lance Armstrong: The Worldwide Exclusive.” In doping his way through seven consecutive Tour de France wins, Armstrong not only brought shame to himself and his yellow uniform, but to his team, his country and certainly his sponsors — the United States Post Office, who hardly needs another bad thing happening to it, aand for whom the Armstrong wins were rare bright spots amid a decade of decline, but also Discovery.
Armstrong rode for Discovery Channel in 2005, the year he retired after seven wins for the Post Office and Discovery. In a way he’s riding for Discovery again now. How much more effective than a taciturn apology is the ability to boost one of your most struggling networks — Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network — with the prospects of a “worldwide exclusive” on your confession.
Millions likely found OWN — which doesn’t even run in HD yet — for the first time in searching for the much hyped, 90-minute first part of the interview Thursday (the second part runs Friday). There, in the ads were all kinds of promos for other provocative OWN programming, include a “50 Shades of Grey” tie-in Tuesday.
The interview itself showed what a strong interviewer Oprah can be when she wants, starting with a string of yes/no questions that set the baseline for what would follow: Did he or did he not take these performance enhancing drugs?
There she followed with more detailed questions as well as some well-produced background packages on what he said, what others have accused as the years have gone on. The details of the doping cases, the investigating agencies and the drugs themselves could still get a little confusing but there was some general drama going on throughout. But not the kind of super drama Oprah thrives on: no tears or other signs of emotional regret, no jumping on the couch and gladly, no tours of Neverland with the host.
Armstrong admitted he was a bully and a dick (and the program got a 14 rating for language!) but wasn’t overly detailed in his explanations. At times, it had the entertainment value of a court deposition. But it was still a big coup regarding the big news story of the day and it may well advance Oprah into the realm of serious TV journalists. Maybe you’ll see her line of inquiry on a presidential debate someday.
But whether the planning of the interview on a Discovery network was a coincidence or the deepest secret of negotiations, there’s no question that the attention to the interview will benefit Discovery, which like everything Armstrong attached himself to (with the sole exception perhaps of Sheryl Crow) has felt the stink of being long associated by his persistent lies and won’t mind getting something good out of it now.