Oprah Winfrey is everywhere – on TV, radio, the internet, in magazines – but why isn't there a place where people can just stare at Oprah Winfrey's face 24 hours a day?
Well, just you wait, because soon there will be – Oprah Winfrey and Discovery have announced that they're teaming up to launch OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, completely dedicated to Oprah Winfrey.
Although details are scant at the moment, early Oprah Winfrey Network shows are thought to include Obey Oprah, Do Exactly As Oprah Says All The Time and The Remember That Oprah is Your All Powerful Leader And Non-Believers Will Be Crushed Coffee And Chat Fun Hour.
These days you can get TV networks dedicated to anything, as the existence of UKTV Old Discarded Shoes You Sometimes Find On Railway Bridges On Wednesdays When It's Raining Slightly proves only too well. And yet nobody has dedicated an entire TV network to Oprah Winfrey before, which seems odd to say the least.
Because, you see, Oprah Winfrey has made a success of every other medium she's appeared in. Oprah's syndicated talkshow is so popular that if she did a feature on cramming your mouth full of live birds, you'd instantly see millions of dumpy housewives with feathers poking out of their mouths.
Oprah's magazine has more subscribers that all religious texts in history. Oprah's website is so popular that one day it'll go bad and hold the world to ransom like in The Terminator. Oprah's radio station, well, let's not pretend we've actually listened to that. We're only human after all.
But our point is that it's borderline inconceivable that there isn't a 24 TV network purely devoted to Oprah Winfrey. Luckily, though, Oprah Winfrey and Discovery have changed that, as the New York Times reports:
Ms. Winfrey and Discovery Communications said on Tuesday that they would jointly create OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable television channel to make its debut in 2009 on what is now the Discovery Health Channel. Discovery Health is available in more than 70 million homes. The new channel will not initially carry “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the top-rated syndicated daytime talk show featuring Ms. Winfrey as host. But Ms. Winfrey said that she had the option to end that show in 2010 or 2011 and could move the talk show to the new channel then. “Eventually that will happen, we hope,” Ms. Winfrey said.
So it's official – Oprah Winfrey is now more important than health. But what kind of shows can we expect to see on the Oprah Winfrey Network? Well, as well as keeping her non-lesbian lover friend Gayle King in permanent employment, perhaps OWN will go some way to demystifying Oprah Winfrey the person.
Maybe there'll be Oprah Winfrey-fronted workshops full of practical advice, like how to properly respond when girls get sexually abused at that school you built or how to kick up a stink when a French boutique won't open especially for you even though you're Oprah Winfrey from the telly.
But until the Oprah Winfrey Network gets a dedicated audience, it'd be wise not to blow too much money on it. That's why, to save money, for the first six months of broadcast, 23 hours of OWN's day will consist of nothing but a close-up image of Oprah Winfrey's fire-eyed face in front of a rotating Archimedes spiral along with murmured instructions that everything will be OK if you just accept Oprah Winfrey as your supreme cosmic dictator.
Still, sounds better than Dave +1.
Read more:
Oprah Winfrey and Discovery to Create New Cable Network – New York Times
dahozho says
Not a fan of Oprah’s, no cable/satellite, so not worried. She’s just another ‘celebrity’ who has an inflated view of herself, and sadly, tending towards racism these days. (Have you seen the latest from Harpo Productions? If all the roles were color-reversed, it would never get play. So just as bad, imo. I believe, as Dr. King did, that its the content of character that matters, not the color of the skin.)
At least her political appearances are damped down for now.
Thought she was brilliant in The Color Purple, which was *robbed* for Best Picture that year, btw. Admire her work in girls’ education, just wish it was a bit more broadly focused.