Monday 13th September 2004

TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey gave a brand-new Pontiac G-6 sedan, worth $28,500, to everyone in her studio audience: a total of 276 cars in all. Oprah had her producers fill the crowd with people who “desperately needed” the cars, and announced the prize (by jumping up and down, waving a giant keyring and yelling “Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!”), mayhem broke out all around her. It was, as one media expert told a reporter, “one of the great promotional stunts in the history of television.”