Boy, the OWN network has really been catching a lot of flack, and I’d love to say ‘lately’, as I adore and very much respect the Queen of television, Oprah Winfrey herself, but since the inception of her network she and it have been getting it from what seems like both sides, her detractors and her supporters.

There has been much promised and not as much delivered.  The first promise was that the network would be great from the beginning.  Then they danced around the less than stellar ratings by saying that once Oprah retired from her talk show of 25 years and was able to focus all of her energy into it that things would/will improve.  I believe that this will be the case but the pressure of the network having already been on the air for so long will not help her case in this bid for regaining confidence.

Oprah herself will be involved in more programming and is starting another one of her master’s type classes.  She is also adding quite a heavy hitter to her network with Rosie who has a loyal following and should help settle some viewers back into tuning into the Oprah Winfrey brand.

Rosie will be taking her inspiration from some of the greats; Dick Cavett, Carol Burnett and Craig Ferguson.  On each show she will open with a monologue and then will have two segments of celebrity chit-chat, or a human interest piece and a game show segment.

Russell Brand is her first guest and from what I hear the first show will be live.  In all honesty I may or may not watch this new incarnation of Rosie, but I am happy she is back on the air and hope she brings her brand of ‘hot intelligent mess’ to the OWN network in style.

photo’s courtesy of:

balangastoday.com

thestar.com

weblogs.variety.com