We all thought Oprah Winfrey retired from television so that she could be a full-time executive with her own network. But with the OWN network in serious trouble and on life support just to survive, Oprah’s retirement is short lived as she is being forced back in front of the cameras to save her OWN’s life!
OWN has announced that Oprah is headed back on the air with a new show called “Oprah’s Next Chapter,” that will premiere in January. The new show will not be taped in front of a live studio audience, but will instead have Winfrey visit Steven Tyler at his New Hampshire home, travel to Haiti with Sean Penn nearly 2 years after the earthquake, and even have a slumber party at Paula Deen’s Georgia estate.
When Winfrey shut down her iconic talk show after 25 years, she said at the time her role going forward would be strictly behind the cameras for her new network. But the results at OWN have been beyond disappointing. The poorly received Rosie O’Donnell show (taped at The Oprah Winfrey Show’s old Harpo Studios in Chicago) had 497,000 viewers when it premiered October 10th, but is now showing just under 200,000. And the contest for one lucky someone to win their own talk show on OWN never materialized. So with Oprah losing viewers and dollars by the millions, she has no other choice but to try something new.
Critics have lambasted Oprah for being out of touch with mainstream American viewers, saying her idea of programming is far too deep and not very entertaining. Others have taken Oprah to task for not yet figuring out why light hearted shows like “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” or “The Jersey Shore” grabs viewers, but lifestyle shows like “Pay It Forward” on OWN does not.
Said one critic: “No wonder Oprah’s best friend Gayle King jumped ship and is moving to CBS to co-host The Early Show.” Ouch!
I wasn't into watching Oprah's talk-show (I watch very little tv and I've never like talk-shows). But I have always admired her stellar professional/business achievements and philanthropic endeavors.I have to say, I never understood WHY she felt the need to have her *OWN* cable network(?) She was so successful without it.From the beginning I thought it an incredibly ri$ky business move….so ri$ky, that it wasn't worth the ri$k at all. Sadly, it's looking more and more like I was right. I also considered the issue of Oprah's past battles with Depression due to her inablity to cope effectively with *Failure* (SEE: Oprah after the failure of her movie adaptation of Toni Morrison's best seller book "Beloved")With scores of Discovery Network investors involved in this horrifically expen$ive venture. I shudder to think how she would handle such a monumental Failing if indeed she has to pull the plug on her network(?) Suffice it to say: I don't think she'd ever be the same again.