China's Oprah

This isn't something new; that Chen Luyu is China's Oprah. Oprah of course refers to Oprah Winfrey, host of the highly rated Oprah Winfrey Show which ran a whopping 25 years in national syndication. Her show has inspired Chinese television talk show  A Date With Luyu 鲁豫有约. The Chinese programme uses the same format, a similar set too; and was very successful. It has a studio audience of about 300 and about 140 million more at home for each show and has been in the air since 1998. Apart from a Chinese host, a notable difference from Oprah Winfrey Show and the Chinese version is in the latter, interviews are done in Mandarin, though not always. When Lu Yu interviewed Wentworth Miller, Nick Vujicic,  Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner, she did so in English. In such cases, Chinese subtitles were available for Chinese audiences. Chen Luyu had been known to be a hard worker, reportedly went to bed at 7pm, got up at 4am, and had never taken a day off work. And I was wondering why she is so thin; reminding me of the late Karen Carpenter...and wondering if anorexia nervosa is the problem...


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