Oprah Winfrey to get her own TV network
Discovery Communications and Winfrey announced a deal Tuesday where the Discovery Health network will be turned over to Winfrey next year, becoming OWN ‘ the Oprah Winfrey Network.
The cash-free transaction involved Winfrey turning over her Web site to Discovery, while the communications company makes her chairman of the network, which is currently seen in 68 million homes, said David Zaslav, Discovery Communications chief.
“The focus of the channel will be the focus of Oprah’s brand, which is the educate and inspire people to live the best life they can,” Zaslav said.
Some of Winfrey’s stable of regular contributors could be expected to be part of the programming, he said. Winfrey’s current talk show, as well as rights to use of reruns, is spoken for until the end of the 2010-11 season.
Besides hosting syndication’s top-rated talk show, Winfrey puts out her own magazine.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) ‘ Four major studios have canceled dozens of writers’ contracts in a possible concession that the current television season cannot be saved, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
The move means the 2-month old writers strike may also endanger next season’s new shows, the Times said.
January is usually the beginning of pilot season, when networks order new scripted shows. But the strike leaves networks without a pool of comedy and drama scripts from which to choose.
20th Century Fox Television, CBS Paramount Network Television, NBC Universal and Warner Bros. Television told the Times they have terminated development and production agreements.
Studios typically pay $500,000 to $2 million a year per writer for them and their staffs to develop new show concepts.
“I didn’t see it coming,” Barbara Hall, a writer and producer whose credits include former CBS series “Joan of Arcadia” and “Judging Amy,” told the Times, which said ABC executives gave her the news Friday. “I am not entirely sure what their strategy is, all I know was that I was a casualty of it.”
The newspaper said more than 65 deals with writers have been eliminated since Friday.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) ‘ Britney Spears will get another chance next month to persuade a court commissioner to restore her visitation rights to see her two little boys.
The pop star went to a courthouse on Monday but never made it inside, leaving abruptly amid a swarm of paparazzi without attending a hearing in her child-custody battle with her ex-husband. A new hearing was scheduled for Feb. 19.
Superior Court commissioner Scott Gordon heard a day of closed-door testimony from ex-husband Kevin Federline and witnesses to a bizarre situation this month: Police took the pop singer to a hospital after a standoff in which she refused to return the boys to Federline’s bodyguard after a visit.
Gordon ruled that a Jan. 4 emergency order suspending Spears’ visitation rights and giving custody to Federline would remain in effect.
“The word victory is not something Mr. Federline or his counsel would ascribe to this. There is no joy. This is a grave situation for all,” Federline’s attorney, Mark Vincent Kaplan, said outside the courthouse.
Although Federline agreed with the ruling, Kaplan said, “his goal, his hope for the future, is at some point he will be able to parent the children with the participation of their mother.”