Jane Zhang & The Oprah Winfrey Show 简介

Jane Zhang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jane Zhang also known as Zhang Liangying (born October 11, 1984) is a Chinese pop singer. She rose to prominence after her third-place performance in the 2005 season of the Super Girl contest, a national all-female singing competition in the People's Republic of China. Throughout the competition, she sang in English, Spanish and Cantonese in addition to Mandarin Chinese.

Zhang's debut album was titled The One and was produced by Craig Williams. Her next album, Update, broke away from the Chinese pop scene by combining elements of R&B and jazz. After the release of Update, Zhang participated in a World Peace One concert that was designed to increase awareness and activism for world peace, and to raise funds for humanitarian relief. Other participating artists included U2, Madonna, Pink Floyd and Green Day.

2005: Super Girl competition

Zhang auditioned for the Super Girl contest in 2005. Super Girl is the Chinese equivalent to the popular Idol franchise where only female contestants were allowed to participate. She auditioned in Chengdu, and after progressing through the preliminary rounds, she entered the national competition with Li Yuchun and He Jie.

Throughout the series, she had established a fan base whose members called themselves "Liang Fen", a phrase that combined the Chinese pronunciation of her name and the English word "fan." The term "Liang Fen" originated from Hong Kong years ago, but is now used to define a particular type of bean jelly snack in central China.

Zhang demonstrated her ability to sing in foreign languages, with performances of "I Still Believe," "What's Up," "Beautiful," and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina." As such, she was recognized by judges, critics and musicians to be the most talented singer in this competition.Some critics even regarded her as one of China's best artists.

Nevertheless, she was not the most popular contestant among young supporters. Her final number of votes by text messaging was 1.3 million. Consequently, she placed third behind Li Yuchun and Zhou Bichang. Her loss did not come as a shock because Li and Zhou had garnered more popularity during the competition. Their creative eccentricity and tomboyish appearances triumphed over Zhang's "old, introverted, [and] pretty-girl" image.

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The Oprah Winfrey Show
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Oprah Winfrey Show (often simply referred to as Oprah) is a United States syndicated talk show, hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey, and is the highest-rated talk show in American television history. It is currently the longest-running daytime television talk show in the United States, having run nationally since September 8, 1986, for over 22 seasons and 3,000 episodes (as of September 10, 2007). The show is renewed through 2011, but in a 2007 interview with Larry King, Oprah said that in 2011, she will not renew her contract, thus ending the show.

The show is highly influential, especially with women, and many of its topics penetrate into American pop-cultural consciousness. While early episodes of the show followed a Phil Donahue-style exploration of sensationalistic social issues, Oprah eventually transformed her series into a more positive, spiritually uplifting experience marked by book clubs, celebrity interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events.

The show airs on most CBS- and ABC-owned stations in the United States (as well as other stations contracted to KingWorld and its CBS Television Distribution successor), CTV in Canada and on Diva TV in the United Kingdom.

The show began broadcasting in High Definition beginning with its 2008-09 season premiere episode on September 8, 2008, becoming one of the first nationally-syndicated daytime talk shows to do so. That season premiere was broadcast from Chicago's Millennium Park and featured over 175 athletes from the U.S. Olympic Team including gold-medalists Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh, and Kobe Bryant.