Of course not. But I couldn’t pass up this chance to poke fun at the ridiculous press that wants to tie everything that happens to Oprah to her Obama endorsement. As usual, this isn’t about politics, it’s about money!
CBS Television Distribution’s The Oprah Winfrey Show will depart broadcast syndication and move to Winfrey’s new cable network, OWN, when the show’s contract expires in 2011, according to a report published by Deadline Hollywood Daily’s Nikki Finke. That report is in line with what Discovery chief David Zaslav had said nearly one year ago to the day.
On Thursday afternoon executives tied to the show were issuing a round of statements saying nothing has been finalized.
via Broadcasting & Cable.
I can’t help but think of the Howard Stern jump to Sirius with this story. Yeah she’s better off, and has a huge empire to keep up exposure, but the move will most definately slash her viewership numbers.
At first I thought CBS would be flipping out about this, but then I realized that her audience has started to shrink, and with affiliates not willing to shell out huge cash to daytime syndication, she may have been simply too expensive to re-up her contract. I’m POSITIVE CBS is freaking out (since she made this announcement without telling them first. They HATE being in the dark), but perhaps the accounting department for affiliates will be happy since this saves them truckloads of cash they’d have to pay out.
Oprah has more money that she can ever spend, so I’m not sure if she even cares about the viewship anymore. On the own network, she can control everything, which is what, I think, she really wants.
it doesnt matter, oprah is outdated. her mistake was backstabbing women and girls everywhere when she sold what is left of her soul to get obama elected. Just like he will, oprah should share the blame for him. as far as im concerned, oprah is over.
Take a chill pill Robert!
“Is The Oprah Winfrey Show Moving To OWN Because of Obama Endorsement?”
Hopefully not. Endorsing Obama hasn’t necessarily equated with job security and I’d be *really* depressed if even Oprah became a labor statistic.
Oprah was probably in talks about this a long time ago. She has her own network!!!
I wouldn’t expect this deal to go through. It’s a long time until 2011.
Why are people so upset about her endorsing Obama anyway? She had a right to endorse whoever she chose to. Obama won by a wide margin, it’s not like she had much of an impact. What if Obama lost? Would you still be bashing her?
Look at all the celebs who endorsed McCain. If he had won and lead us straight into WWIII, which he surely would have, would you be bashing them? Obama won, get over it and support him.
Mindy- Let’s be clear. OWN has been in talks for a long time, not moving her show. Had that been the case, this wouldn’t be news. CBS was planning on working with her for a long time. If anything, it’s Discovery’s demand to either move her show to OWN or lose the cable channel.
Who cares? The woman has been building up her war chest of daytime syndies for years – she’ll still have an outlets, affils will still have programming and she gets her WON network.
She’s a great business woman.
Wow, that was some horrible spelling. Apologies.
Clearly Oprah doesn’t care about people who are too poor to pay $100 a month for cable so they can see her show. Let the women who live in poverty watch Jerry Springer on free tv, right Oprah? Or will she talk Obama into subsidizing cable (with our money) for everyone so they can still watch her snoozefest?
paul
You may not have heard this yet, but the wireless companies (telephone and internet) are now pushing to have ALL broadcast networks removed from over the air and to cable and satellite. The proposal would also include a funding program for low income folks to get these channels on cable being paid for by taxpayers. Then the various new wireless services will take over the frequencies completely from TV. I think it is rather dumb to do it now instead of during the so-called digital conversion. Also a wireless block of channels are also said to be in the proposal for those going WIFI as streaming video, so before long ( or when ever) broadcast might become a thing of history and no longer FREE over the air.
That is one crazy good business woman. She turned a daytime talk show into her own TV network. Hot damn.
Forget her politics – this woman has more than enough to apologize for unloading Dr. Phil on America. The fattest guy to ever attempt to sell America a scummy diet. Not to mention Oprah pushing the fake autobiographies. And naturally the free cars that cost these poor people a small fortune in taxes.
I can assure you there are more than few station programmers who puked out their breakfast when they realized they no longer have the big lead for their 5 p.m. newscast. “You’re not the father!” isn’t going to bring in the Oprah numbers. Remember those dorks at Clear Channel that thought losing Howard wouldn’t matter?
Miss O on her OWN network will have more freedom to run a show with her endorsee, and aim for broader ethnic (read hispanic) appeal. The show would be named “Mi Barry-O”.
It kills me how you can present objective data about an issue and people still believe their original premise, regardless if the data supports your argument or not. This site has written many post (Great job, btw) about how the numbers don’t corroborate with the statement “The Obama endorsement has hurt Oprah’s ratings”. But I hear this statement like its indisputable fact.
I guess this is what modern politics is all about.
Allen Charles; not that I don’t believe you but could you provide some links on the proposed ideas? / bills? to move locals? / networks ? to cable/wireless?
Never heard of such a proposal but since the NBC local around me is in a standoff with TWC about adding their HD feed I’d love to see this happen.
Who care where she moves, I don’t know a single person who watches her show anymore or cares what she thinks about anything.