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SizzleTV by Mark Stone
How long will Oprah be staying on basic cable? (photo contributed)
This morning Nikki Finke reported that after next season, The Oprah Winfrey Show as we know it would cease to exist. Her website, DeadlineHollywoodDaily, an insider site that is read by most of the big name Hollywood moguls, claims that OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network, owned by Discovery Communications) was supposed to launch as a joint venture between Winfrey and Discovery, but was delayed. Now it appears that Discovery is giving her an ultimatum to move the show to OWN from syndication or lose the network altogether.
The big change could go down as early as 2011, and Winfrey is reportedly meeting with programming execs to get things rolling. The move will involve moving her entire production out of Chicago and into Los Angeles.
Finke’s report apparently blindsided CBS, which owns distribution rights for the show. “In all honesty, we have not heard she’s made a decision yet whether to continue,” an insider told Finke after the report was published. ”We think we’re still in the talking stages. To our minds, it’s a non-decision.”
When asked for comment, a rep for Harpo productions told Zap2it, “She has not made a decision yet. As she has previously stated, she’ll make an announcement before the end of the year.”
Winfrey’s eventual move to cable has been anticipated for a while, but nobody really expected it to come so soon. Finke’s report has obviously created a big stir and there’s going to be a lot of fighting going on in the next few months to decide the show’s fate on basic cable. I’m not sure whom her sources are, but of course all the official sources are denying everything saying that a decision has not been made. Competing Hollywood insider site TheWrap seems to agree, and is stating that as of now this story is nothing but pure speculation.
The big question is: will fans follow her to cable? Only time will tell. But for now, we can get the lowdown right from the horses mouth tonight when Oprah herself is interviewed on CNN by Anderson Cooper.
Time for some serious TV spoilers
Hate knowing what may happen on some of your favorite shows ahead of time? If that’s you, you may want to skip this section. Or, if you see the show you love highlighted in black and don’t want to know the scoop, just skip that one.
Still with me? Cool. Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello and Zap2it’s Korbi Ghosh, here are some hot spoilers for ya:
- FlashForward fans won’t want to miss tonight’s episode, where one of the major characters is apparently going to be killed off. Plus, we may find out the significance of the Blue Hand.
- On November 23rd, Dr. House is going to be punched in the face. Chase eventually loses it and decks the cranky doctor.
- While Jane Lynch’s character on Glee, Sue, is not scheduled to do any singing in the near future, Lynch is campaigning to the show’s producers to get at least one song in before the season is done.
- Some shocking things are in store for Alex and Izzie in the second half of the Grey’s Anatomy season.
- Mentalist fans are going to lose several characters on the November 19th episode.
- Rumours of Melina Kanakaredes getting killed off CSI: NY in the very near future are apparently false.
- While Rita may have been less annoying in Sunday’s episode of Dexter, her nagging ways return this Sunday. Plus, Sunday’s episode is apparently going to be “game-changing,” going where the show has never gone before.
- Scrubs returns to TV next month, and will eventually get a visit from Christa Miller, who plays Dr. Cox’s wife. You may (or may not, especially with her surgery gone wrong) recognize the former Drew Carry star in Cougar Town.
- Chuck will most likely be back for a second season in January, two months earlier than expected.
World Series takes huge bite of rivals in last night’s ratings
Game six, the deciding game of the World Series, racked up huge numbers last night and stole away viewers from every show it faced. All the Wednesday night shows were affected, posting their lowest numbers of the season.
The most interesting story to come out of the ratings last night though has got to be that for the first time, The Jay Leno Show did not finish last in its time slot. Jay’s show barely beat ABC’s dreadful Eastwick, albeit by only 100,000 viewers.
How bad is that for Eastwick to lose out to Jay?
What’s on tonight
All systems are go for all your favorite shows, including Fox who is airing new episodes of Bones and Fringe. The network was hoping for a game seven in the World Series and at the last minute decided to go with their regular shows instead of local programming.
Expect fresh episodes of FlashForward, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Survivor, CSI, The Mentalist, Community, Parks and Recreation, The Office, 30 Rock, The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural.
Are you watching Parks and Recreation? I despised the pilot but I keep hearing that the show has really found a groove. I’m almost curious to tune in to see what I’m missing. Help me out – is it worth devoting 22 more minutes per week of my life to? I’m almost ready to give up on 30 Rock, which would give me the time.
Oprah Winfrey is scheduled to appear on Anderson Cooper’s AC360 tonight on CNN sometime between 7 and 9 pm, but may be rescheduled due to coverage of the tragic shooting in Fort Hood today.
Sports fans only have one choice tonight – the big hockey rivalry that is the Bruins and Canadiens. The game is on TSN at 4 pm.
In tonight’s Survivor, in anticipation of a merger, Foa Foa devise a plan to prevent being picked off one by one in future tribal councils. With Russell still in the game, I wouldn’t be surprised if the plan works. Stay tuned tomorrow for my full recap. Hopefully tonight’s episode will be more exciting than the dull one last week.
Another highlight is sure to be The Office, where Jim and Pam, having run out of excuses, are forced to go on an uncomfortable double date with Michael and Pam’s mom Helena. Can you say awkward? Last week’s episode was the season’s worst, and I hope the show gets back on track tonight.
Latenight highlights: Jim Carrey on Conan; Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon on Fallon; Yankees Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, Bill Maher and Keith Urban on Letterman; and Denis Leary on Ferguson.
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Eastwick is not dreadful. I love Eastwick, it is an entertaining show that deserves better ratings. It’s not its fault ABC haven’t been treating it fairly with advertising and marketing!
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