Oprah Fires the Head of Her OWN Network, At Last
It’s never a nice story when someone loses their job. But Christina Norman, head Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network, probably had it coming. At MTV she was well known for never returning calls. I was a little surprised when Oprah put her in charge of OWN, but maybe she saw something no one else did. Maybe she never called Christina Norman at MTV. Anyway, Norman is out at OWN. Discovery’s Peter Ligouri is in. With the exception of Gayle King‘s show, OWN is a desert strewn with junk. Certainly after producing her own show for 25 years, Winfrey can bring more important, enlightened, and hip material to a whole cable network. Otherwise, she s just contributing more garbage to the heaps of it already existing — and coming soon thanks to the cancellation of soap operas in favor of cooking and makeover shows.
Just the branding calling a network after Oprah or anyone for that matter does not feel inclusively inspiring of the intention of the network which they have missed from the start. Oprah is smart – maybe she will get it one day. At the core… Look at Oprah deep down – does she represent HEALTH AND WELLBEING to you?. Think NOT!
Even what you call garbage is better at OWN than most daytime channels combined, and even some good ones at night.. She is improving it rapidly. Don’t count OWN out…after all it IS an Oprah undertaking, and she hasn’t missed yet.
It would be a really good network if they could show one new Oprah Show every day, one new Gayle King show, a show like Dr Phil and a show like the Doctors, then Oprah Show reruns for the rest of the day.