OWN shakeup tests Oprah Winfrey, Discovery relationship

I think Oprah needs to find her voice and raise it to the sky. I think she is listening to other people tell what people want to see on TV. Some of us really do want to watch quality TV. I think we also have to stop expecting OWN to be the Oprah show that we loved for 25 years.  I would hope that eventually that she would have a nightly news shows. I just saw Arsenio Hall guest host on Piers Morgan last week, he still has it!!

Oprah Winfrey is used to running the show, whether it was her hit daytime TV program or the fledgling cable channel named for her and which she rules as chairman and chief executive.

But this week's Oprah Winfrey Network shakeup, which included a 20 percent staff layoff, thrusts her into a new dynamic: power-sharing with a top executive from the company that's bankrolled OWN with $300 million-plus.

It's a crucial moment for the media queen, who made OWN her next big move after "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and for OWN itself: Can Winfrey work as an effective corporate teammate with partner Discovery Communications to turn the struggling channel around?

There's another bedrock question: Does a big enough audience exist for the earnest, uplifting fare on Winfrey's OWN, so antithetical to the blowsy charms of "Jersey Shore," ''Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and much else that's popular on cable TV?

As important as control might be to Winfrey, she's also a savvy businesswoman and has been willing to take advice before -- and not just from Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil or her other TV health and wealth proteges. Her syndicated talk show's distributor made sure she stayed on track.

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