Oprah - The Next Chapter?

The bad news: Oprah's daily talk show is ending in September of 2011.

The good news: Oprah isn't leaving the talk show world, she is just moving to cable and prime time.

Instead of having a daily talk show. Oprah, being the wonder woman that she is, is creating her own cable network. The channel is called OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network) and it is also where she will host her new show titled, "Oprah’s Next Chapter". However, "The Next Chapter" will be quite different from Oprah's current gig. For starters the show will take place outside the walls of her current studio and will only air a few times a week.

The idea is to get the big bucks from advertisers by placing her on prime time. The announcement was made during Discovery Communications' annual upfront (learned about this term last week!). During the presentation Winfrey was quoted as saying, "“I want to take what I’ve established in daytime, inspiring people and giving them hope — and some cars — and build on that, 24/7, OWN style.”

My personal opinion on the matter: Although I think that the OWN will be hugely successful, I do not think that "Oprah's Next Chapter' will be as big of a hit. I don't believe that Oprah, although I do love her, will able to bring what she created during the daytime and bring it to prime time. The reason being, Oprah's key target audience are stay at home women, whom at 4pm have time to sit down and watch her show while cooking dinner or putting their kids down for a nap. However, I believe that during prime time there is more going in the woman's life as well as increased competition on television. Yet, I do believe that she will be successful in the upfronts and selling ad space, I am just unsure if consumers will actually watch it.