Oprah gives away 276 cars on TV show
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US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey kicked off the 19th season of her show by giving away 276 cars worth seven million dollars.
Winfrey provided all 276 women in her hand-picked audience with the Pontiac G6 sports sedans.
Relatives of all the audience had written in to the show say the women were a deserving case.
Eleven of the cars were given out during the show while the rest of the audience got gift boxes. When the women opened the boxes they also had the keys to new cars, which makers General Motors Corp. estimate to be worth about 28,000 dollars each.
GM said the cost of the cars was the same as about 50 prime time television adverts.
The show reaches an estimated weekly audience of 30 million viewers in the United States and is also syndicated to more than 100 other countries.
"Anyone can run commercials, but you rarely get a chance to partner with someone of Oprah's stature," said Mark-Hans Richer, Pontiac's director of marketing. -
wow...
how i need a car now
but... wow.. what a publicity scoop!
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I'm not greedy one. I don't want car from Oprah. I only want 0.05% of her money. (psst psst... I heard she is a billionaire)
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She got helluva lot more problem giving away COE.
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Oprah's 'free' Pontiacs come with hidden price tag, recipients find
Thu Sep 23, 7:14 PM ET
CHICAGO (CP) - Hundreds of people who were given "free" cars by TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey are complaining the gifts came with a hefty hidden price tag, the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper reported Thursday.
Many of the 276 recipients of the new Pontiacs that Winfrey gave away last week are going to have to fork over thousands of dollars in taxes. While Pontiac agreed to pay for most local charges - state sales tax and licensing fees - the recipients have to report the cars to the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites) as income.
Adding $28,500 to someone's income can push them into a higher tax bracket - which means they will have to pay about 25 per cent or more of the car's value in taxes.
For a nearly $30,000 car, that probably means, for most of the recipients, shelling out $7,125 for the "free" car.
"It's not really a free car, it's more of a 75-per-cent-off car," Susan Nelson, a recipient of one of the cars, told the Sun-Times.
Some recipients are going to wait a few months before actually picking up their cars so they can figure out how to pay for the taxes.
Heather Lundeen said she has looked into a car loan to pay off the taxes. -
I watched that episode. It was named "The Dream Team". I kept going "yeah, right." They sponsored a teen's makeover, wardrobe, and a company even offered to sponsor her studies at any uni of her choice.
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when she coming to Singapore to host talk show.