Tyra proves she's bankable

By Kiri Blakeley

updated 6:28 p.m. ET June 15, 2006

The world's most famous supermodel, Tyra Banks, stands on a soundstage in Culver City, Calif., and barks orders at a beautiful-but-beleaguered cast member of her top-rated reality show, "America's Next Top Model." The Tyra trainee swivels her head again and again to gaze into a TV camera, but the real Tyra wants more. "Whip it fast and tight!" Banks commands. "Relax your mouth, as if you've had a shot of novocaine. It's too soap opera. Novocaine mouth!"

Impatient, Banks demonstrates for the rookie, breaking down the mechanics of head-turning as a choreographer would deconstruct a pirouette.

"We're in a day and age when these kids want instant success, and they don't want to work for it. I feel tough love prepares these girls," Banks says later, defending her cutting style; in one episode she screams at a contestant so loudly Banks' eyes threaten to burst out of her head. But she admits to a second motive: People would rather watch nasty than nice. "I've got to sell a TV show."

Genetically blessed with creamy caramel skin, feline emerald eyes and a perfect pout, Tyra Banks made a name (and a fortune) for herself as the face of Victoria's Secret, Cover Girl and Sports Illustrated. Stomping down fashion runways from the age of 15, she is 32 now, an unmitigated modeling machine. She can flip through a dozen looks — sexy, pensive, dreamy, flirty — in a dozen seconds. She can coo, "Who will be America's next top model?" 20 different ways for promos. Even in front of a wind machine, she seems able to control every hair on her head.

Yet Banks officially retired from modeling last year. And as highly paid as she was — at her peak she could earn $50,000 a day and had a lingerie contract worth $4 million a year — her next fortune could be far larger: Tyra Banks is making a credible run at becoming the next Oprah Winfrey for the younger set.

Buoyed by the success of "ANTM," as fans call the model-search show, Banks launched her own talk show last year, selling it to TV stations in 190 markets and owning a hefty stake in it. Now it has been renewed for a sophomore season — just as "ANTM," on the air for three years and 25 percent-owned by its star host, starts another run as the centerpiece of CW, the new network formed by the merger of Viacom's UPN and Time Warner's WB.

The double duty pays fabulously well: Banks earned upward of $18 million last year, far more than most supermodels earn; she ranks 84 on the FORBES Celebrity list. But it demands a grueling schedule. "America's Next Top Model" churns out 13 new weekly episodes every six months or so, and "The Tyra Banks Show" turns out 170 episodes a year. For five months last year, from August to December, Banks worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, taping two talk-show episodes three days a week (plus daily segments for "ANTM") and preparing for her last fashion show for Victoria's Secret. She awoke at 4 a.m., was in makeup by 5 a.m. and ran on three or four hours of sleep each night. "There was a burning in my stomach every single day," she says.

Talk show apprentice
Oprah Winfrey, with a net worth of $1.4 billion and ranked third on the FORBES celeb list, has been the unchallenged queen of daytime talk for two decades; Banks even apprenticed on Winfrey's show for two seasons, starting in 1999, as a semi-regular contributor. Yet the supermodel upstart fares especially well among a group coveted by advertisers: young women. Among women ages 18 to 34, Banks' talk show draws 2.2 million viewers a week and has delivered the highest daytime ratings in years for stations in New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Some 36 percent of the Tyra audience is under 35, double the percentage of that age group among Oprah's viewers; almost 60 percent of the Oprah audience is 50 or older.

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Banks' appeal popped when her first show, "ANTM," debuted on UPN in 2003. Reality shows were hot, and she conceived hers as Fox's "American Idol" meets MTV's "Real World," set in the fashion business. She pitched it to veteran reality producer Ken Mok, who said simply, "Hell, yes!" He still co-owns it with Banks and UPN's parent, Viacom. The formula clicked instantly: pretty girls crying, fighting and having every molecule on their insecure little bodies brutally critiqued by Banks and her fellow judges.

Some 43 percent of the 18-to-34-year-olds watching had never before tuned in to UPN. UPN's focus soon shifted from geeky guys (it had a "Star Trek" spinoff) to hip femmes. "Before she came, UPN was a confused network," says Dawn Ostroff, president of the CW, which will air "ANTM" Wednesday nights and rerun it on Sundays. Last year "ANTM" trailed only the most-watched show, "American Idol," among women younger than 35.

The new series was a hit despite scant initial promotion. "That spoke volumes to me about this connection she had with women. It was a lot deeper than just being a model," says James Paratore, president of Time Warner's syndication unit, Telepictures. His shop now distributes her talk show and co-owns it with Banks' firm, Bankable Productions. Time Warner co-owns the CW network, letting its Telepictures unit cross-promote; Banks already regularly has contestants from "ANTM" appear on her talk show. Almost 90 percent of the "ANTM" audience also watches the Tyra talk show, Paratore says.

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