I just wrote a blog about “American Idol” and what a force that show is for other’s to deal with. But, you want to talk about a force – at least “American Idol” doesn’t have its own network (at least not yet). In case you have not heard, Oprah Winfrey apparently is not happy enough having a television show, a magazine, a satellite radio show, a production company, her Oprah.com website, and her own reality show (Oprah Winfrey’s The Big Give). No, now she is going to have her OWN network.
And by OWN, I am not trying to emphasis that it will be Oprah’s network, it will be called OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network). It was announced earlier this year that Oprah’s OWN network would hit the airwaves in 2009. It will be run by Oprah, but it is a joint production between her Harpo Production Company and Discovery Communications, with Discovery handling the distribution and operational tasks. The network is expected to be placed in more than 68 million homes
This does not mean the Oprah talk show will be leaving the network any time soon. Her contract with that does not expire until 2011. And, this isn’t even Oprah’s first venture into owning a network. She helped co-found the Oxygen network back in 2000. However, it seemed that co-owning Oxygen didn’t allow Oprah as much control it as she wanted. Oprah will be the chairman of OWN and has said it is “the fulfillment of yet another dream for me.” She views this as “an opportunity for me to step out of the box and make the kind of shows that make my heart sing,” going on to say she will focus on “mindful, not mindless, television.”
I suppose it is all just another day in the life for the woman who recently topped the Power List in Forbes magazine. The magazine estimated that Oprah made $275 million in the past year. I cannot even fathom having that kind of wealth.