Thursday, January 3, 2013

Oprah's Salvation from the Middle of the Night

Oprah is more of a teacher than a do-er but I mean this in a good way.  Her strength has been in identifying talent, in empathizing with her audience and guests, and in building brand and appeal.  The latest “what I know for sure” in her January magazine declares that she must listen to herself rather than what others see as her “failure” with her network.  I think she needs to wake up and smell the coffee.  I have trolled her lineup regularly and there is almost nothing there that makes me inspired to pay for getting her channel added to my lineup.  And I’m a big fan of Oprah.  There is virtually nothing on this channel that interests me.
       As I lay awake one night I thought about what she could do to bring over an audience.  When 3 old soaps were going out she could have picked any one of the 3 up and she would have had a built in audience right away.  It’s probably too late to revitalize All My Children, One Life to Live or As the World Turns (was that the other one?) but I thought could it work to rerun one of them from the beginning with a lead in or close out chat talking about the storyline, the actors, the fashion of the day, etc.  I have no idea what the cost would be but I feel confident that this would bring in fans from the show – which number in the millions.
       I also thought that Oprah should do a Saturday night show of her own, perhaps something along the line of the old Loretta Young show where she could either narrate or even act on an episode, all episodes to be stand alone shows.  For one thing Oprah would be able to bring on new actors which she has clearly shown she has a talent for identifying (Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, Dr. Oz, Nate Berkus, to name a few).  Or she could stay behind the scenes but start a new style of variety show for Saturday nights, anything that would compete with the sports currently shown on Saturday night would be a relief and preferably something without vampires or zombies!
       Finally why is she not creating her own shows instead of taking general meat market programs of no particular value?  Why isn’t she doing miniseries along the lines of Downton Abbey, Boardwalk Empire or Bomb Girls?  Why isn’t she using a format similar to the regular networks, with standing shows, news shows and talk shows?  Who wants to see a string of The Shopping Bags or any of the others shows that are 5 years old or more? 
       I’m asking where is Oprah’s sense of creativity and adventure.  It is not evident on OWN.  It is dull, cheap and lacking imagination.  I know nothing at all about running a TV show much less a whole channel but it is clear that there is no money being spent to make this into a really creative or innovative station.  If you are going to buy up old stuff, at least make it vintage and give it some lead in whoomph. 
       Just some thoughts from the middle of the night.

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