O, My
I don’t have anything against Oprah. I think her book club probably did a lot of good, for example. Her show, last I saw of it, and which wasn’t very often anyway, did seem to have devolved from the kind of tabloid-ish self-help and “awareness” topics she became famous for into celebrity-sharing and scream-fest giveaways, but if that’s what she wants and what keeps her brand going, that’s up to her. Her trip to Australia, is just perplexing, and not just the reaction to it.

Tourism’s a great thing and a big part of the economy here, and we spent millions of dollars to bring her down. I don’t imagine recouping that very soon as an immediate consequence of Oprah’s visit. The 8,000 people in Melbourne’s Federation Square today, for example, are likely for the most part locals and unlikely in consequence to spend any money, whether for public transport or lunch, than they would have already, but the disruption they’ll have caused to traffic will surely have a flow-on effect to productivity and revenue elsewhere. Maybe not much, but just wait until the big O gets to Sydney and the rebranded Oprah House. At least there’ll be an offset in parking fees and fines and ticket sales. But her 300 imported audience members aren’t likely to bring about much of a difference. Even after they get home and tell everyone how wonderful Australia is, with the U.S. economy in the tank, how many Qantas flights will that translate to?

Good luck to her and the various Federal and State Tourism Ministers, hotel associations, etc. But 8,000 people standing around for a fifteen minute look at Oprah waving to them? Weird.