The Booming Business of Ellen DeGeneres: From Broke and Banished to Daytime's Top Earner

Friendly, funny and yep, she’s gay -- the pain and the glory in creating her top-earning syndicated series. Says Oprah: "Being truthful ... allowed the audience to fall in love with her."
哈哈 Oprah说得对极鸟！！！


Ellen DeGeneres
"Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values," she told her viewers in February.

"When you see her, you like her and you want to laugh"
One night, as a 27-year-old Ellen DeGeneres was performing at The Improv in Los Angeles, a few supporters -- including Jay Leno, whom she had opened for a handful of times -- turned to Johnny Carson's booker and suggested he pay attention. "There are comedians who people laugh at but don't like. That's not Ellen. When you see her, you like her and you want to laugh," says Leno, adding, "She understands that being a good comic is about making people happy, and that's what she does." Weeks later, DeGeneres was booked on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Oprah Winfrey on Ellen DeGeneres
"Being able to be free -- literally -- and to express herself in a way that she can be 100 percent truthful with the audience has allowed them to fall in love with her," says Oprah Winfrey, who guest-starred as DeGeneres' therapist in that infamous episode of Ellen. "Honest-to-God truth: I don't believe she would have been as successful as she has become had she not come out."

The Ellen DeGeneres Show
On Sept. 10, the Telepictures talk show will enter its 10th season on air, a milestone few station managers predicted DeGeneres would reach back in 2003, when she was spiraling from her courageous -- and, for a three-year period, career-destroying -- decision to publicly reveal her sexual orientation.

"Being fully herself, on air and off" Ellen DeGeneres, made a pact with herself long ago to be fully herself, on air and off. "I know that every time I list something that I am, I am potentially alienating a whole group of people. Publicists and managers will encourage you not to say what political party you belong to, what you eat, what you don't eat, who you sleep with and all that stuff," she says, pausing to think through what will come next.

Taylor Swift on Ellen DeGeneres
She'll pal around with kids, prank celebrities and put members of her studio audience in a dunk tank to get laughs. "People tend to gravitate toward the fun," says 12-time guest Taylor Swift, who adds, "In between segments, Ellen leans over and asks me how I'm really doing and checks in with me about what I talked to her about the last time."

"She's an antidote for the times"
"For an hour each day, Ellen makes you forget your troubles and feel good," says Hilary Estey McLoughlin, president of Warner Bros.-owned Telepictures. "She's an antidote for the times."

"No one ever won daytime just by being nice"
Behind DeGeneres' laid-back on-air persona is a shrewd businesswoman who recognizes that the competitive field will grow more crowded in September with Katie Couric, Jeff Probst, Ricki Lake, Trisha Goddard and DeGeneres' NBC lead-in Steve Harvey. Her producers insist Ellen will stay its course, differentiating itself through its mix of comedy, feel-good pieces and promotable celebrity interviews.

"It's all based on Ellen not trying to be anybody but who she is"
The executives at Telepictures have spent the better part of a decade trying to better understand what it is about DeGeneres' show that has enabled it to cut through the daytime clutter in a way that most shows don't -- or can't. What they've found, according to Telepictures executive vp current programming David McGuire, "It's all based on Ellen not trying to be anybody but who she is."

Rosie McClelland and Sophia Grace Brownlee
"Since the train has left the station," she says of the young duo, YouTube stars-turned-frequent guests Rosie McClelland, 5, and Sophia Grace Brownlee, 9, "I might as well be the conductor," says DeGeneres.

ellen童鞋的这篇报道将由好莱坞报道杂志在8.23-9.05 发行

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ellen-degeneres-show-oprah-winfrey-jay-leno-364373
The Hollywood Reporter magazine.