Back to basics for Oprah …
For now it’s a far cry from the tastefully appointed office at Harpo Productions in Chicago, but Oprah is making do and getting down to business behind her makeshift workspace at OWN office in Los Angeles.
The newly-retired talk show maven’s final broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show was May 25. Since that time she had a yachting adventure and has since been mostly kicking back at her luxury Montecito estate.
She tweeted the new photo on Thursday, suggesting that she has grown restless and needs to get cracking with the next chapter … getting OWN out of the ratings cellar.
Her new network, launched on January 1, 2011 with very little content, has struggled. She has three new shows of her own in the works. Beginning in October she will appear in a nightly show where she will share top lessons she has learned while making 4560 shows during her 25-year stint on daytime television.
She said: “I’m taking The Oprah Show library and redesigning the shows into the 100 best lessons I’ve learned about everything that can help you live a better life.”
She’ll also launch two shows in January: Oprah Presents: Master Class and Oprah’s Next Chapter.
The folks back at Harpo Studios have been busy with a new show as well. The talented bunch of producers will be making Rosie O’Donnell look good every evening at 7:00 p.m. beginning this fall, when her new show airs on OWN.
Jenny McCarthy, unfortunately, has decided to take her talk show project elsewhere. Rumor has it she will take it to NBC instead, though the network with the peacock logo would only say: “We do not comment on projects in development.”
A Harpo spokesman was slightly more forthcoming: “The parties mutually agreed several months ago not to move forward with the project.”
Photos: Twitter-Oprah, Harpo Productions