Oprah, With Failing TV Network, Takes Her Team to Barbados
Oprah’s OWN Network is a pretty public failure. No one’s watching it, and I frankly have no idea where it is. The Discovery Network is trying to figure out how to save OWN. So what does Oprah do? She takes her “team” to Barbados and posts a picture of it on Instagram. Even better the six people seated around the table are eating enough food for 20 people at some kind of beautiful villa. There’s an Instagram of the brunch spread, too. How utterly decadent! Oprah fiddles while Rome burns. How will the other people at OWN and Discovery enjoy this photo?
Meanwhile, Oprah did indeed have Mickey Singer on and told the world how much she loves his book, “The Untethered Soul.” She mentions that he was indicted and lets Singer get away with saying he was innocent and that all the charges were dropped. Not so simple, Mickey. Singer paid a $2.5 million fine to the government in a settlement. Two defendants had their charges dismissed over a lapsed statute of limitations. Singer used the best lawyers money could buy to defeat local Florida prosecutors.
I found OWN on my iPad thanks to the Time Warner app. Super Soul Sunday was very enlightening. But I’d rather listen to real Super Soul Sunday on WBLS when Debi Jackson plays an afternoon of super soul classics. And she plays them with conviction!
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.
Nonni Langley
How the hell did they ever expect this to work? She had a highly successful one hour show on five days a week on a network channel — and I doubt that Oprah could even replicate that success. She may have been “money” once, but that is all over now.