Oprah Winfrey won’t be disappearing from television completely when her syndicated daytime talk show goes off the air next year. The Wall Street Journal reported on April 8 that the talk show queen and media mogul will be hosting an hour-long evening show called ‘Oprah’s Next Chapter’ on her new cable network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
The new show will most likely debut late next year, after her daytime show folds, and will be broadcast about two or three times a week. Winfrey will ditch her studio, instead taking her guests around the world.
‘Oprah’s Next Chapter’ will is one of the dozen programs that OWN has already lined up. The network is scheduled to debut on January 1, and will be backed by Winfrey’s production company Harpo and cable programmer Discovery Communications Inc.
The network was pitched more than two years ago, but the launch has been pushed back since then. It was first reported that Winfrey was indecisive about her on-air role, but she fired back, saying that she needed to assemble the right staff and pick the right programming tone.
The Wall Street Journal questioned if ‘Oprah’s Next Chapter’ will excel as much as ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show.’ After all, the majority of Winfrey’s current audience is housewives/stay-at-home moms. If Winfrey goes to prime-time, she’ll have to compete against other popular reality shows, including ‘American Idol’ and ‘The Biggest Loser,’ to get a bigger audience.
Written by: Karen Benardello
