ABC - WILL OPRAH WINFREY MOVE HER SHOW TO CABLE?

WILL OPRAH WINFREY MOVE HER SHOW TO CABLE?

CBS TV Distribution says that it has not been apprised by anyone within Oprah Winfrey's Harpo organization that she plans to pull up stakes in Chicago and move her syndicated talk show to her Los Angeles-based cable network OWN in 2011. Winfrey's purported move was first disclosed by entertainment industry blogger Nikki Finke on her Dateline Hollywood website on Thursday. Winfrey's contract with CBS TV Distribution -- although CBS acquired King World, the company that launched Winfrey's daytime program, in 2000, her program airs mostly on ABC-owned and -affiliated stations -- ends in 2011; OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network) has yet to announce a launch date, and has been plagued by organizational turmoil. Last Tuesday it was announced that the cable channel had hired as its new chief creative officer Lisa Erspamer, a longtime producer of Winfrey's talk show. Late Thursday, Finke quoted an insider connected with CBS Television Distribution as saying, "In all honesty, we have not heard she's made a decision yet whether to continue. ... We think we're still in the talking stages. To our minds, it's a non-decision." And in a conference call with analysts on Thursday, CBS Chairman Les Moonves said that the company would not know the outcome of talks with Winfrey "for a few months."

06/11/2009