Where will we get our Oprah fix after 2011? The latest news from her production company Harpo is that Winfrey is still deciding what she’ll do when current syndication deal with CBS expires in mid-2011. Will she re-up or move her talk show to her own LA-based network OWN? One thing to remember: In the eons since Winfrey first signed her syndication deal with King World (way back in 1986), this is not the first time she’s considered walking away from her network talk show.
In 1997, King World saw its stock drop after reports that Winfrey was thinking about quitting. She eventually signed an extension through 2000 (and, big sigh, the stock recovered.) In 2002, Winfrey put out word she planned to retire from the talk show in 2006, only to extend her syndication deal through 2011 a couple years later. And in 2005, Winfrey set a new potential retirement date: 2011. (This time around, Winfrey has promised she’ll announce her intentions by the end of the year.) Is Oprah conflicted about her future in the talk show world? Or is she just a master negotiator when it comes to new contracts? Will you follow Winfrey if she moves to OWN?
Photo Credit: Armando Gallo/Retna Ltd
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i think she’ll stay where she is, in Chicago and on the networks.
What will all of the fat housewives do without Oprah telling them what to read and think?
I don’t know, why don’t you tell us.
I don’t watch her show, but why doesn’t she move it to Oxygen? Didn’t she help create that network? Seems like it might help drive viewers to it if she moved her show there.
This is a good question. She helped create Oxygen, and I believe she relinquished / sold her shares in it. In other words, she’s no longer affiliated. So now she wants to start her own network….but remember — Oxygen!
she is so over. i doubt her show will be around by 2011
Moving her show off of one of the big networks would be a mistake. Her star power + the broad reach being on network TV provides gives her a lot of leverage to score exclusive interviews.
An interview with Oprah would not be nearly as valuable if her show was on OWN. I think she’ll re-sign her contract just so that she can keep gabbing with famous people.
She lost a lot of viewers when she introduced Oclueless to the world, while snubbing Sarah Palin. That was a really bad move, not to mention the mess we are now in because of it. She turned her show partisan. She lost me and millions more. I say its time to retire. She’s no longer relevant.mention the mess we are now in because of it. She turned her show partisan. She lost me and millions more. I say its time to retire. She’s no longer relevant.
When is snubbing Sarah Palin ever a bad idea? Doesn’t seem to have hurt Oprah that much.
Ya, she has really struggled since then. Number 3 syndicated show in the nation. Number one talk show (daytime or nighttime). She really shot herself in the foot. She’s probably devastated that you went away. You know, Entertainment Weekly has written some pretty mean things about Palin too. Does that mean we can get you to go away from here, also?!
I don’t know if you know this, but Oprah doesn’t need you. In fact, we’d all love if you stopped pretending Oprah’s “lost” you only to write comments on an article about her you chose to read. I bet you still watch her. Stop lying to yourself!
I’m guessing by “the mess we’re in now” you mean a black president. Surely you don’t mean the two wars and tanked economy that he inherited from his predecessor. We were in “this mess” for a year before he was elected and inaugerated, it says a lot about you that you didn’t seem to notice until a black man was in charge. It says even more that you would even consider voting for a ticket that had Sarah Palin on it, there are plenty of smart and capabable republicans(John McCain might well have gotten my vote if he had chosen Tom Ridge), but that woman is clearly an imbecile.
her, here…totally agreed with everything you said LM
She lost a lot of viewers when she introduced Oclueless to the world, while snubbing Sarah Palin. That was a really bad move, not to mention the mess we are now in because of it. She turned her show partisan. She lost me and millions more. I say its time to retire. She’s no longer relevant.
Supporting Palin would have been a worse move.
And the mess we are in now was created by Bush, not Obama. Obama inherited a mess 8 years in the making and it’s going to take more than 9 months to clean it up.
As I’ve told people before that use that argument, yes Obama inherited a mess. BUT, so did every other president before him. Washington inherited a war for independence from England and the creation of a brand new governing body.
Truman had to drop a bomb.
Hoover, a stock market crumbling.
Forget blaming predecessors for one second, and ask yourself what Obama has done so far that helped the country. The answer will be as varied as the people you ask, but in the end the answer is not much. He’s got a few years left in office, but I find it doubtful he’ll be reelected unless he makes some good moves soon. Afterall, campaigning for the next election starts before they even take office.
Bush actually inherited a budget surplus, Nicole.
ha yea…a budget surplus on paper! Not in actuality. Clinton balanced the budget on paper. He never enacted it. So no Bush did not inherit a surplus.
Really this mess we are in is more about Obama pushing through “recovery and stimulus plans” that have done nothing…well except raise my taxes…and if he has his way with the cap and energy tax and healthcare bill I and all middle america will be taxed into the poor house.
Wait, what happened to all those people that made endless posts for 8 years about how you don’t ever critisize the president during wartime? You couldn’t even dare say that Bush might have made any kind of mistake without a passle of people crawling out of the woodwork to tell you that you were being unAmerican. Of course, they would always claim that applied to the president from either party (they had convenient amnesia about the 8 years preceding Bush). It seems as though those people have vanished, dissapeared into the ether.
Rememeber: The ‘Maury’ show TIED Oprah this past week in ratings. Sssssssssstupid paternity tests and “is it a man or a woman?” got just as high ratings as the phony uppity Grand (closeted dy|ke) O. Also her Whitney Houston season premiere in Sept. was among the lowest ratings. Might be time.
This may be true but the appeal of Oprah is far beyond the VIEWERS or RATINGS she gets. Jerry Springer used to have higher ratings than her, as did Ricky Lake.
Guess who came out on top?
Oprah has weathered many storms in her life, I hardly think she is worried.
You all are a bunch of idiots who have left comments. I think Oprah has lost more people over her medical shows than politics. She didn’t snub Palin, she didn’t have any of the candidates on during the election. Palin is more than happy to come on now with her book anyway because she’s hoping to use Oprah’s audience to make more of that green stuff she’s after anyway. You’re saying she’s not relevent and yet at the same time saying that America only votes for who Oprah tells them to vote for.
The Opster lost me when she turned traitor to women and endorsed a man with no experience instead of Hillary. Haven’t watched her show since, and wish she’d go away…
Oprah doesn’t give a damn that you don’t watch her show. She has billions and is an icon/humanitarian. And who are you? yea….
So nice of you to attack Cardsgal like that but have no substance to your attack. Bravo to you.
I think Cardsgal has a good point. I certainly think she only stood by Obama because of his ethnicity. I’m not saying Hillary was the be all and end all, but the ill-experienced, overzealous and head in the clouds Obama certainly was not the best choice we had.
“the ill-experienced, overzealous and head in the clouds Obama certainly was not the best choice we had”
whose “facts” are those? yours? please, stop spreading your delusion.
and you need help with reading comprehension. how did i attack cardsgal? i said Oprah doesn’t care what she thinks, and i’m probably right.
I used to watch the show, but its just gotten so bloated. The show has felt over produced…she needs to get back to the basics, more like The Ellen D
Degeneres show…its become more about her, and her opinions, than the guests or the subject.
Oprah Winfrey will do what strategic business persons do everyday. She has one of the most brilliant minds in America and will continue to go above and beyond what anyone thinks she is capable of. You may not like her, you may not watch her show, but no one can deny that she is an immensely smart woman who has done a lot of good for this world.
ITA. people hate on Oprah to make themselves feel better or other odd reasons. but she has done, and will continue to do alot of good in this world. say what you want about Oprah, but her show has always been about positivity and helping people.
While that is true, it is also true that people are turned off by her arrogance and self-satisfaction. It is also strange that for someone as smart and successful as she is, Oprah is oddly unworldly and unsophisticated.
how is she “unworldly” and unsophisticated?!
you say it like it’s a fact, when it’s just your opinion.
millions of people would say she’s not “unworldly” (which btw, is not a word, “Mr. Sophisticated”) b/c she’s established a school in South Africa and that she’s sophisticated–she spreads her love of literature and encourages others to read.
That would be great is she walked away.
Don’t leave Chicago. You are a big fish in a small pond here. Head west and your importance will immediately diminish. Nobody’s gonna pay cable for YOU. People have already grown weary of you abit, so don’t rock your own boat.