Tuesday, May 19, 2026

Why Oprah Wants the ABC Soaps: Tyler Perry’s Soap Has Saved Her Network

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Remember, Oprah Winfrey said she didn’t want the ABC soaps. She sent out a YouTube video last year telling her fans why soaps were dead and she wasn’t interested in buying “One Life to Live” and “All My Children.” But then a funny thing happened. Oprah, looking for ratings, bought Tyler Perry’s “The Haves and Have Nots.” Perry’s prime time soap pulled bigger ratings than anything ever on OWN.

Last week “The Have Nots” pulled 1.77 million total viewers– a million more than Oprah’s own show on the network. And the network doubled its order for episodes. Suddenly Oprah needs more soaps. Soaps work. What a surprise. So now, for relatively nothing, she’s bringing “AMC”and “OLTL” to OWN on July 15th. If they work, and I think they will, the shows will stay on OWN– and Oprah will look for more soaps they can add to their line up. Maybe she can convince Procter & Gamble to revive the shows they carelessly killed off.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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