Oprah Winfrey's Own Network Not Quite What I Had Hoped

When I first heard about Oprah Winfrey starting her own cable network, I was extremely excited and began to think of the types of programming I would have on a network that I owned. I envisioned so many things but was quite surprised by the things written in Ms. Gloria Goodale , Staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor, which explained a few of the first upcoming shows. She reports that "b eginning at noon Saturday, OWN - a joint venture between Winfrey and the Discovery network that replaces the Discovery Health Channel - will roll out a sneak preview of upcoming shows. The lineup includes "Master Class," a celebrity interview series with influential figures selected by Oprah. Among the notables to be featured are Sidney Poitier, Diane Sawyer and Maya Angelou. Also on the debut roster: an exploration of social trends from Lisa Ling, "Our America with Lisa Ling"; a family-themed intervention-style reality show, "Kidnapped by the Kids," in which a group of children take back family time from workaholic parents; and a self-help declutter-your-life tutorial, "Enough Already!".

What I had hoped was in addition to shows like some of these mentioned would be shows which show more reality of citizens' everyday life but not "reality shows". Shows were the laughs are genuine and not made by some laugh track. Shows where many of us can actually saw that the actions of the characters are very close to the actions that we would take. A history show which shows the contribution of all races to the building of this nation and not just from one aspect. Less sex scenes and more true love scenes. Less about race and more about people and their true nature of relationships, but then that's my vision and not hers so I can deal with this slight disappointment.

One of the main reasons that I truly expect for OWN to hold its own is because of the already negativity it is receiving as demonstrated in the previously mentioned article where a Mr. David Johnson, branding and marketing expert and CEO of Strategic Vision, a public relations firm says "Oprah has tarnished her image in the past few years and alienated many viewers. Prior to Oprah's endorsement of Barack Obama, he says, she appealed to a wide swath of viewers who felt she was above the sort of partisan nastiness that tainted so much of popular television. But, as she has become more partisan and forceful about her endorsements and preferences, this has turned off many potential viewers. "This is Oprah over-reaching in a very big way". The move could even turn into a programming fiasco as wrong-headed as when NBC moved Jay Leno to 10 p.m. with disastrous results." For experts like Mr. Johnson to be weighting in so early in the game signals to me that Oprah may be really on to something great because if memory serves, some said the same thing when she started her show long ago.