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Will Chicago come up with replacement for Oprah?
From the moment Oprah Winfrey tearfully announced plans to end her Chicago-based talk show in 2011 speculation erupted about what would come next. One of the first shows floated as a compatible replacement was "The View," ABC's high-rated and highly profitable multigenerational coffee klatch. Now ABC executives are starting to focus on that scenario as a serious possibility.
In an exclusive report Thursday on the website NewsBlues.com, editor Mike James revealed discussions among top officials of ABC and parent Walt Disney Co. about the future of "The View" and whether it should be repackaged for syndication as a replacement for "The Oprah Winfrey Show." (Since its inception in 1997, "The View" has followed Oprah in Chicago at 10 a.m. weekdays on WLS-Channel 7.)
As popular as "The View" may be, James reported, ABC's owned stations and affiliates -- as well as co-creator and host Barbara Walters -- are strongly opposed to having the network show turned into a syndicated strip, which would force ABC stations to bid on a program they've carried for years. "Moving "ËœThe View' into syndication and taking it into the marketplace would be both damaging and insulting," one station manager told NewsBlues.
A more likely option reportedly would be for ABC to move "The View" to an afternoon slot -- either to 2 p.m. (bumping "General Hospital" to an earlier time) or to 3 p.m. as a lead-in to local news (which is when "The Oprah Winfrey Show" now airs in most other markets).
Meanwhile, Oprah's own Chicago-based Harpo Productions is expected to step up with other talk shows it's had a hand in producing or developing, such as Phil McGraw's "Dr. Phil," "Rachael Ray" and Mehmet Oz's "The Dr. Oz Show." Harpo is reported to be on a fast track to launch a new syndicated series with Nate Berkus, the Chicago decorator and designer who's been a contributor to Oprah's show for years.
Emily Barr, president and general manager of Channel 7, declined to comment on any of the speculation Thursday. But at the time of Oprah's announcement last November, Barr was quoted as saying there'd be plenty of options to consider between now and September 2011:
"There's always cycles in the television business. We are thrilled to have had this long association with Oprah and we will miss her, but we will also move on and see what else is out there."
Some have surmised that the Chicago-based Live Well HD Network, which Barr launched last April and now airs on the digital tiers of all 10 ABC-owned stations, could serve as a laboratory for development of new programming to fill the void after Oprah's departure from syndication.
An even more intriguing possibility would be for Channel 7 to go back to the drawing board and create a new local show that could originate from either of two studios in the ABC Building at 190 N. State. Besides bringing a little pizzazz back into the market after Oprah departs, a locally produced talk show would allow the station to control costs by avoiding exorbitant licensing fees.
And if the new show caught on, who knows? It might just be ripe for national syndication someday. For starters, maybe they could call it -- oh, I don't know -- "A.M. Chicago."
Elsewhere on the media beat:
- While the 25th‚ annual Cubs Convention is going on this weekend at the Hilton Chicago, Bob Sirott will be ensconced in a room upstairs set up as a high definition video studio, conducting interviews with former Cub greats Andre Dawson, Ferguson Jenkins, Rick Sutcliffe and Lee Smith. As part of his "Cubs Legends" video series, Sirott already has taped in-depth conversations with Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and Billy Williams. No word yet on where the videos will be shown, but they could turn up on a proposed video-on-demand Cubs channel or in the Cubs museum planned for a site adjacent to Wrigley Field. Sirott also hosts "The Noon Show" on Tribune Co.-owned news/talk WGN-AM (720).
- Two infomercial-type lifestyle shows produced by Tribune Co.-owned Oak Brook Productions will migrate this weekend from CLTV to WGN-Channel 9. Starting Sunday, "Homes Plus," a guide to home design and real estate, will air at 11 a.m., and "Living Healthy Chicago," a health and medical information show, will air at 11:30 a.m. Both will continue to air multiple times each week on CLTV as well.
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"lou piniella says corleones run legitimate olive oil business"
as for this post, i would like to incorporate by reference my comments made earlier this week on another oprah post. said comment essentially stated that we have been flooded by oprah's tears. it is time for all of us drunk on her sentimentality to dry out. it is impossible to create a replacement for oprah. perhaps her replacement will simply arise from her flood of tears as athena did from the foam of the sea. and with any luck, this replacement will be the anti-oprah, that is, a non-weeping icon.
to that end, maybe oprah's replacement was unwittingly mentioned in this very post. i speak of bob sirott, already a chicago legend. imagine his talk show for chicks. "our guest today is dr. laura berman, sex expert. dr. berman, we all want to know how to, er, uh, make whoopie, as it were, a bit better. could you please tell us how, but kindly use cub euphemisms to describe say, for example, how we can declare 'let's play two today' to our partner and be able to come through?"
there is, i confess, much to be said for being lost in bob's "mad men" world. one question: how much did the cubs players charge him for the interviews? i hope the deal included their autographs as well.
Love Bruce Wolf. Love Bob Sirott. Love Bruce Wolf goofing on Bob Sirott.
Why can't this be a podcast?
I'm going to cast a vote of agreement with those who've been saying that Bruce Wolf needs to start using conventional capitalization (some paragraphing would be nice, too).
The rule in the comment thread at my blog is that persistent violators of the sentence-case requirement are asked to leave because, bluntly, it's rude and disrespectful. Not to go all schoolmarm on the brilliant Mr. Wolf, but the reason we use capital letters, punctuation, paragraphing and so on is not because it's easier for us, the writers, but because it's easier on our readers.
Whether you mean it or not, when you write in all lower-case letters you're saying, "I'm putting so little energy and care into what I have to say that I'm not even willing to generate the minimal energy requires to hit the `shift' key."
And when I, as a reader, see a big block of type as above what I see is evidence of a writer who has put minimal effort into whatever he's saying. At the very least it's not inviting.
Or perhaps in this case we should all be grateful that Bruce at least stirs himself to use the space bar.
Rob-You are losing control of your blog.
Too late on the schoolmarm, Zorn.
Hey Bruce, Eric's right about your lazy shiftiness. Next time, TRY ALL CAPS. YOUR POSTS ARE SHOUTS ANYWAY.
I will not comment on anyone's lack of punctuation (the least of his problems). This is Low Blood Pressure Friday in my house and my goal is to maintain 110/78 all day.
The idea of local television producing a replacement hour for Opie is preposterous, if not laughable.
Although, The Girlfriends ARE still on the street . . .
what about eric zorn?
can he do the saturday new york times crossword puzzle faster than i can? if so, does this allow him more time for capitalization?
what if we compromise, and i provide more paragraphs and some spacing?
at least i'm not going back to the economy-sized tribune spelling of "thru."
i care. i care. i care. i care so much i am auditioning to become the new oprah. see the piece i've done that is tentatively set to run on monday, jan. 18 on the nbc5 news at 5 p.m.
ah, here's the rub. i try to put in the spacing but once i submit the entry the spaces are sucked up like water by a bounty quicker picker upper paper towel.
maybe i just need.
to paragraph.
more.
bruce wolf, the ee cummings of our time!
i vote for bruce wolf lower case....i love it....
...and clam rule day.
I don't care about any of this.
Just promise not to shock me with any more Whoopie photos.
Eric, I agree completely! Capitalization, spacing, etc, it's all basic. Come on Bruce, at least capitalize the personal pronoun "I".