All Oprah, All the Time

Imagine, if you will, a world without the Oprah show. The all-pervasive Oprah brand has been with us since 1986. But her contract ends in 2011. Now who will greet us when when we get home from work or school, Steve Wilkos?

Lord help us.

I was in the 6th grade when The Oprah Winfrey show made its debut. Little did I know what an enterprise it would become. Talk shows of that sort were just starting. What started as a sprinkling of followers in the 80s led to a huge BOOM in the 1990s, all following Oprah’s model. Even with the so-called “competition,” she was able to rise above.

Oprah is more than just a talk show; it’s an entity. She is responsible not only for her success, but the successes of many others, be it philanthropy, branding, even a passing comment. A mere mention from Oprah is worth more than gold.

So what is a world without Oprah like? Will she fade away into a new world of inactivity? Will her entrepreneurial spirit retire as well? Not quite.

One blogger says, that Oprah might want to consider replacing Joe Biden in the 2012 re-election, claiming that the 2011 date for her retirement is no coincidence.

According to the Tribune, Winfrey has been back and forth on the possibility of ending her world famous show for a while. Now with her Oprah Winfrey Network vision, the possibility seems more likely.

After all, why should she be satisfied with only ONE show when she can have an ENTIRE CHANNEL? The most powerful woman in the world is taking on a new cable channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network, with Discovery Communications. The company’s CEO said in a conference call Friday that Winfrey will not renew her syndicated talk show contract when it expires in September 2011.

“The expectation is that after that, her show will go off of ABC in syndication and she will come to OWN,” Discovery CEO David Zaslav said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “We’re talking now about what the presence will be and what kind of programming she would be involved in directly. But this is her Chapter 2, and building the OWN brand online and on-air is . . . a core mission for her.”

“This network isn’t just about me,” Oprah says. “It’s using the voice and the brand and the vision, but it really is about creating possibilities for any number of people … to extend the vision….”

Liberty Media’s Discovery Communications paid Ms. Winfrey $420 million to take control of Discovery Health Channel which will become OWN. OWN would be a 50-50 venture between Winfrey’s Harpo Productions and Discovery Communications.

This is a huge win for Discovery, and since the Oprah brand has few losses, score one for her as well.

“This is an evolution of what I’ve been able to do every day. I will now have the opportunity to do that 24 hours a day on a platform that goes on forever.” She says.