The new brand

Tyra Banks' energy, forward-thinking, good intentions, and slightly weird belief in her own abilty to change people's lives have put her in the Oprah/Martha league. (NY Times/photo by Ruven Afanador)

Banks is not unconditional in her affection for the girls in her audience — she expects them (especially on “Top Model”) to apply themselves with vigor and to follow her example. It is not an accident that Banks posed with a sharp-looking cane in the last series of “Top Model” print ads and that her favorite word is “fierce.” Her message of optimism, reinforced by a heavy dose of discipline, has given her show one of the youngest demographics in daytime television. While about half of the viewers that Oprah attracts are 50 and older, 65 percent of Banks’s are under 50, and she especially embraces and influences a particular sector — young girls from high school to age 34. Both “Top Model” and “The Tyra Banks Show” are consistently near the top of that category and attract more than 13 million total viewers weekly, a larger overall audience than, say, “The View” or “Late Show With David Letterman.”