Word: oprah
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...everyone is as sure as Oprah is about the timing. For her fans, and the stations who carry her talk-fest - and certainly for book authors whose work she championed - the final air date of Sept. 9, 2011 is all too soon. But given what Oprah wants to do next, it might be too late. She's leaving network TV to focus on creating OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a new cable channel that she's launching with Discovery Communications. She announced the venture almost two years ago but it will not start airing until January...
...thinking behind creating her own cable property is sound. Oprah's Harpo Productions is almost as successful a creator of TV programming as she is a talk show host. Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray and Dr. Oz were all sucklings on The Oprah Winfrey Show before being launched solo into syndication. And she's not done yet: Harpo and Sony just announced that a show hosted by Nate Berkus, her interior designer of choice, will be available in 2010. "She has as good an understanding of media and how it works as anyone I've ever met," says Ken Sunshine...
...once was. Most big media companies (see Disney or News Corp.) are seeing more growth and profit in their cable operations, which have a more reliable income stream than broadcast advertising. Audiences are slipping away, and with them, high syndication fees. "Television stations have made it crystal clear that [Oprah's] show was going to get an enormous haircut if it comes back," one syndicator told trade publication Broadcasting & Cable. "Why would she want to subject herself to that when she's in such an iconic position and has a piece...
...reason is that starting a cable channel is hard. She already tried it once with Oxygen, now owned by NBC, and home to many reality shows that feature Janice Dickinson or have names that smack of ratings desperation like The Naughty Kitchen and Bad Girls Club. OWN, says Oprah, will reflect her "vision, values and interests." (Which Oxygen never quite did.) (See the top 10 skanky reality shows...
...clearly the only way she can bring any attention of the non-Naughty Kitchen kind to the new cable channel will be if she's actually on the screen. While nobody's saying whether she'll have a talk show, Oprah has confirmed she will "appear on and participate in" programs on OWN. Instead of taking their Oprah straight up for an hour a day, it seems viewers are going to get a taste of her everywhere. Ben Silverman, the former co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and now CEO of new media firm Electus, is buying. "Her willingness to migrate...