Gayle King Promises Talk Show About ‘Normal People’
Our topic today: freshly minted television talk-show hosts who juggle a second job as a local news anchor in New England, are single moms and just happen be a friend of Oprah.
The guest: Gayle King, surely the only person who fills the bill. The Hartford, Conn., TV anchorwoman and, yes, close pal of Oprah Winfrey, is stepping out as host of her own daytime syndicated program.
“The Gayle King Show” debuts on the same date on which ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show” bowed in 1986.
“When I called Oprah and said, ‘Guess what - it’s Sept. 8. Isn’t that a good omen?’ she said, ‘Gayle, I don’t see it as meaning a damn thing except that Sept. 8, 1997, falls on a Monday.”’
Which is not to say that Winfrey, a friend since the pair worked at a Baltimore TV station two decades ago, isn’t rooting for her. She’s offered advice on issues little - nixing King’s first publicity photos - and big.
“She gives me tons of tips that have worked well for her, so let’s hope they work for me,” King said. “The best thing she says is, ‘Gayle, you’ve just gotta get on there and be yourself.”’ Adds King: “You just have to hope they like what they see.”
What a visitor sees is an engaging, blunt-spoken woman who makes you feel like an intimate.
Unlike the single Winfrey, King is divorced and has a son and daughter who have taken precedence in her life. She’s turned down jobs that might have taken the children away from their hometown and their father.
King is keeping her job as news anchor at WFSB-TV in Hartford, where she’s worked since 1981 (except for a brief ‘91 fling with NBC’s magazine show “Cover to Cover”).
“The format of the (new) show is such that we’re going to be talking about normal people doing normal things,” she says.
That also means King is vowing to avoid the sensationalism she describes seeing on other shows. “I really believe you can do a show about normal people, talking about our relationships, our kids, our exes, the jobs you have, finances, clothes,” she says.
xxxx PROGRAM TIME “The Gayle King Show” will air weekdays at 3 p.m. on KREM-Channel 2 beginning Monday.