Anderson Cooper to Host Daytime Talk Show in 2011

Mercury News

 

Just when it appeared Oprah Winfrey's departure from daytime TV would plunge us into a cultural void from which no society could hope to recover, here comes Anderson Cooper to save the day.

Cooper, the anchor of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," plans to host a one-hour daytime television show that will be nationally syndicated in fall 2011, it was announced Thursday. Cooper, 43, will also serve as executive producer on the program, which will be produced by Telepictures Productions.

Cooper, who joined CNN in 2001 and gained national prominence during his coverage of Hurricane Katrina, will continue to anchor his 10 p.m. program and extended his deal with the 24-hour cable news network for an undisclosed period of time. The daytime show, which has no title yet, will cover social issues, trends, events, pop culture, celebrities and human interest news, according to the statement. Cooper will hold town-hall meetings and conduct undercover investigations for the show.

"With this new program I hope to relay important information and relate to people and the audience in a completely different way," Cooper said in the statement.

Cooper, who also contributes to the CBS program "60 Minutes," joins daytime TV as long-running daytime host Winfrey moves to the upcoming Oprah Winfrey Network next year.

Oprah Winfrey asks John Travolta to fly her Audience to Australia

Telegraph UK

Oprah Winfrey began the final season of her talk show with a dramatic gift to her audience - announcing she would fly them all to Australia, with Hollywood star John Travolta piloting the aircraft.

The 300 members of the audience went wild when Winfrey announced the eight-day trip on the first show of her final season, which was aired on US television on Monday.

"We're...going...to...Australia!" Winfrey announced to the shrieking crowd.

As confetti fell and her set was transformed into a mini airport, complete with a plane and worker with glow sticks to guide it onto the set, the audience leapt up and down.

Later John Travolta emerged from the jet and it was revealed he will be the pilot.

The actor is a part-time pilot for the Australian airline Qantas.

Winfrey and Travolta have been planning the trip for a year to mark the end of the chat show queen's hugely popular show.

Winfrey is ending her show after a 25 year run to launch her own TV network in 2011.

The Australian trip offer follows a similar give away when Winfrey gave a car to each member of her audience in 2004.

In Monday's show Winfrey addressed the audience at her Chicago studios by telling them: "This is really my last chance to do something really big.

"And if you want to do something big, you would want to take along your ultimate viewers."

"I started to think about where would I most want to go.

"Maybe I should take all of you with me to the other side of the world…We're going to Australia! We are going to Australia! You and you and you and you, are going to Australia!"

How Far Can Oprah's Universe Reach?

The Wall Street Journal

Oprah Sets Up Decorating Guru Nate Berkus With His Own Show, Betting Her Fans Will Follow

 

 

At a rehearsal for his new daytime TV show, Nate Berkus had a problem. A set of 25 paper placemats he was about to pitch to viewers cost $40. "I think that's too much money," he said during the walk through. He sent producers scrambling to track down a $1 roll of wrapping paper that could be cut into perfect rectangles. Now, Mr. Berkus faces a far bigger problem: Launching a talk show at a time when millions of women are watching less and less television during the day.

The 38-year-old interior designer is getting the biggest launch possible in daytime television. Oprah Winfrey is rewarding Mr. Berkus with his own show after he has appeared regularly on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" for the past eight years. On Sept. 13, Sony Pictures Television and Ms. Winfrey's production company Harpo Studios will roll out "The Nate Berkus Show," a syndicated talk show aimed at Ms. Winfrey's legions of devoted viewers.

Mr. Berkus, part design expert, part self-help guru, fashions himself as the everyman interior designer. He favors soft neutral hues mixed with loud pillows, warm rugs and vintage lamps. "I've never been the snobby decorator guy," he said last month as he reclined in his dressing room on an L-shaped gray sofa, a graphic throw pillow he designed under his arm. "Everyone needs to turn their spaces and their lives into something that works for them."

Just as her book club has spawned dozens of best sellers, Ms. Winfrey has launched some of the biggest names in daytime TV. "Dr. Phil," "Rachael Ray," and "The Dr. Oz Show," started with appearances on "Oprah." The hosts have built empires of their own, sprouting magazines, self-help books and cookbooks.

"When the bird is ready to fly, she lets them go," says Sheri Salata, one of the two presidents at Harpo Studios.

It's a key time for the latest—and possibly the last—host to graduate from what the industry calls Oprah U. Next September, Ms. Winfrey will end "Oprah" after nearly three decades to focus on her new cable network, the Oprah Winfrey Network or OWN. Fans will face a daytime void, creating an opportunity for her handpicked crop of TV offspring.

"Oprah" is the ultimate, and one of the only, successful launching pads for daytime stars, says Steve Mosko, president of Sony Pictures Television. Most local television stations don't have the funds to launch their own talk shows—the way Ms. Winfrey got her start in Chicago. Daytime shows with big-name hosts like "On-Air with Ryan Seacrest," "The Sharon Osbourne Show" and "The Bonnie Hunt Show," have flopped in recent years.

"In a post-Oprah world, having a Harpo show with really the last talent featured on her show was attractive," says John Wallace, president of NBC Local Media, which purchased the rights to air "The Nate Berkus Show" on 10 NBC-owned stations nationwide. The show will air on a total of 177 local stations or in 96% of the country, according to Sony Pictures Television.

Harpo Studios executives noticed last year that when Mr. Berkus visited "Oprah" ratings spiked an average of 20% among the show's core demographic of women ages 25 to 54. "Nate has the ability to be himself which in itself is a gift in TV," Ms. Winfrey says. Plus, "he has great style and is a cutie pie."

The self-taught son of designer Nancy Golden, who appears on cable networks HGTV and DIY, Mr. Berkus worked at an auction house before he founded his own Chicago interior design firm at age 24. "He was the one in the kitchen with his mom when the rest of the kids were watching the football game," says his show's executive producer Terry Murphy.

The show is what Ms. Murphy calls "info-tainment." Each hour typically will include a celebrity interview, usually related to décor, as well as general lifestyle tips. Mr. Berkus will use a technology he calls the "Instant Design Studio," which is a screen similar to the one CNN's John King uses to show election results and on which Mr. Berkus can virtually redecorate rooms.

In a recently taped show at his New York set—made to look like a living-room with a wall of sparsely decorated white bookshelves, bunches of hydrangea and leather armchairs—Mr. Berkus gave a couple advice on preparing for a family reunion. He surprised a college freshman who grew up homeless with a fully furnished dorm room. "The bath caddy will change your life," he told the teen.

Television producers used to love talk shows because they were cheap to make and their advice-dispensing, celebrity-guest format created easy product placement opportunities. But these days advice-seekers can do a quick Internet search and reality TV has made celebrities ubiquitous.

In today's crowded marketplace, even the "Oprah" seal of approval won't guarantee huge ratings, says Brad Adgate, senior vice president of research at Horizon Media, a media-planning and ad-placement firm. "Nate Berkus may be the syndication hit in 2010, but he's not going to be the new Oprah. No one is."

"Oprah" averaged about 6.5 million viewers daily in the season that ended in May, down from more than 10 million in the 1990s, according to Nielsen Co. Last season, "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," considered a hit, drew about 3.2 million viewers daily, ratings that would have led to cancellation a decade ago.

The openly-gay Mr. Berkus fits into an increasingly common TV model. Recent shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style" have successfully cast gay men as women-friendly style advisers. Advice from a female host can seem shrill, and from a straight man it may seem sexual, says Katherine Sender, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has written about reality TV and gay marketing. "From a gay man it's like sisterly advice."

Mr. Berkus, a Chicago-based interior designer, made his first appearance on "Oprah" in 2002, when producers asked him to redo a 319-square-foot studio apartment. He stayed up for 48 hours to complete the project, took out trash himself, and flagged down garbage men with $100 bills to help clear old appliances.

Ms. Winfrey and Mr. Berkus became closer two years later when his partner died in the Tsunami during a vacation in Sri Lanka. Ms. Winfrey helped raise money for charity in his partner's name.

To help Mr. Berkus prepare for 175 shows a year, Ms. Winfrey watched test shows, promos and reviewed plans for the set at the CBS Broadcast Center. She advised Mr. Berkus to keep his signature five o'clock shadow but dress nicer than the torn Levis and fitted tees he often wore on her show. She thought he should expand a segment called "Nate's Crate," in which he surprises recipients with the contents of a crate filled with giveaways from blueprints for a room makeover to a car.

Not everyone who appears on "Oprah" becomes a hit. Motivational speaker and "Oprah" guest Iyanla Vanzant's attempt to launch her own show "Iyanla" in 2001 was short-lived. "They tried to make her me," Ms. Winfrey says, explaining why the show failed. Ms. Vanzant agrees with Ms. Winfrey's assessment. "They molded me into something else. I wasn't innocent in all of it. I let them do it," she says.

And, of course, hosts like Rosie O'Donnell and Ms. DeGeneres are daytime successes without an "Oprah" launch.

Mr. Berkus says he's a "take-away guy," not a "tip-away guy." The difference, he says, is "'take away' is 'oh, I found this great idea and Nate will show me how to translate it into something that's my own.' 'Tip away' is you buy this and then you glue gun this and then you spray paint this."

At the recent taping, he called a giddy thirty-something women up on stage. She shrieked in humiliation when an image of her cluttered study popped up onto his "Instant Design Studio" screen. "No one is judging you," Mr. Berkus assured her as he swept his finger over an unused wall and transformed it into a built-in, white Pottery Barn bookshelf. The crowd let loose an "ahh!"

Jenny McCarthy to Replace Oprah?

One India

 

American actress and former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy may replace Oprah Winfrey after her popular talk-show goes off air at the end of its 25th season in 2011. According to reports, Mc Carthy has made a development deal with Winfrey’s Harpo Productions.

“We do not have anyone taking over for Oprah,” the New York Post quoted a Harpo spokeswoman as saying. “We do have a development deal with Jenny McCarthy. We are exploring possibilities across a number of platforms,” she added.

Oprah is launching her own network and might want McCarthy's talk show on her schedule.

Kitty Kelley's New Oprah Bio has Plenty to Talk About

USA Today

 

Celebrity chronicler Kitty Kelley is doing what she often does when one of her unauthorized blockbuster biographies is about to come out.

She's at her Georgetown office showing a visitor a wall of file cabinets filled with four years' worth of research on her latest subject (some might say "victim"): Oprah Winfrey.

Included are transcripts of 2,732 interviews Winfrey has given. Add to that the 850 interviews Kelley did on the billionaire TV talk show host and you have Oprah: A Biography (Crown, $30). It arrives Tuesday, all 525 footnoted pages of it.

"Oprah was the very best source for this book," says Kelley, who did not interview the TV mogul. "She was fabulous."

As is the way with Kelley bios, the subject rarely thinks it's all so fabulous. Kelley has made millions from her gossipy behind-the-scenes tell-alls on everyone from Jackie Kennedy to Liz Taylor and Frank Sinatra to Nancy Reagan and the Bush clan.

Now it's Oprah's turn to be in the biographer's spotlight. Kelley says she approached her newest subject "with great respect," but Winfrey remains mum about the project.

"Oprah hasn't participated in or read Kitty Kelley's book, so she is unable to comment," says Oprah's spokeswoman, Lisa Halliday. It is the same quote that has been issued the last few months whenever Winfrey is asked about Kelley's book.

'Relax, people'

Kelley, 68, is well aware she is not the face most celebrities want to see at their door. One suspects she might even relish the fact.

Her favorite cartoon in her Georgetown mansion's powder room shows Saddam Hussein in a Baghdad bunker, Kelley parachuting from the sky. "Run for your lives!" he's yelling. "It's Kitty Kelley!"

Over the years, Kelley has claimed that Nancy Reagan and Sinatra had long private "lunches" in the White House — read between the quote marks — and that George W. Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David when his father was president.

In her newest opus, Kelley takes on Winfrey, perhaps one of the most overexposed celebrities in America, following her from her poor childhood and promiscuous youth to her life as one of the most wealthy, powerful and secretive businesswomen in the world.

One question readers will expect Kelley to answer: Are Winfrey and best friend Gayle King really lovers?

"I know people are expecting me to 'out' her. But I think she's just asexual," Kelley says. "She's poured all of her energies into her career. And if she is, she is never ever, ever going to come out. So relax, people."

High-def Oprah

As for Stedman Graham, Winfrey's longtime companion, one Kelley source in the book calls him "nice enough but boring as hell. So boring." Those who say they have spent time with the two told Kelley they're rarely demonstrative.

What Kelley discovered while investigating Winfrey was, not surprisingly, her need to be in control, plus what Kelley calls Winfrey's "world of secrets."

Winfrey makes all employees sign confidentiality agreements — and if she is spoken about in public, they have to refer to her as Mary, not Oprah, just in case someone is eavesdropping.

"And now she's made me keep secrets," says Kelley, who claims she knows who Winfrey's real father is but won't divulge it until Winfrey's mother tells her daughter, something she has been unwilling to do for decades.

Kelley spent three days in Winfrey's hometown, Kosciusko, Miss., chatting up Katharine Esters, Winfrey's cousin who goes by "Aunt" Katharine, then talked to Vernon Winfrey in his Nashville barbershop. (He raised Oprah early on but says he's not her father.)

Neither believes Winfrey's stories about sexual abuse in her youth. (Winfrey says she was "continually molested" from age 9 until 14, and she did give birth to a baby boy at 15 — her uncle was suspected of being the father.)

"I don't believe a bit of it," Esters told Kelley. "No one in the family believes her stories (of sexual abuse) but now that she's so rich and powerful everyone is afraid to contradict her."

Kelley says she found that many of the stories Winfrey has told over the years may be "elaborated."

"I tried to give both sides," Kelley says. "Oprah's stories are colorful and a bit over the top. Maybe they're just little exaggerations."

Kelley, who likes to say "the truth is as important to me as it is to my subjects," — the quote "Tell the truth but ride a fast horse" hangs over her desk — says readers will get to see a "clearer" Oprah in her book. "It's like watching high-definition TV. It's more detailed. You're going to see her better."

That includes a woman who can go from being amazingly petty to astonishingly magnanimous. (Winfrey, at 56, is worth at least $2.4 billion and has given away millions over the years.)

"You think she's warm, but she's really quite aloof," Kelley says. "She gives it all to the camera."

One problem facing Kelley this week is promoting her new biography. Many of Winfrey's pals have circled their wagons. The View's Barbara Walters, CNN's Larry King, CBS' David Letterman and PBS' Charlie Rose have all refused to have Kelley on their shows.

"All said very openly that it was because of Oprah," she says. "And they haven't even had a chance to look at the book yet." She is booked on the Today show today and Bill O'Reilly's show Tuesday.

She also says about 30% of the people she and her researchers approached while researching the book turned her down.

Oprah's good friend, author Maya Angelou, never responded to an interview request, Kelley says. Kelley understands. "Why would she get into it?" Longtime pal Maria Shriver also declined.

Those who agreed include hundreds of acquaintances, co-workers from her early days in Baltimore and family members who weren't intimidated, Kelley says. "But I really don't think (Winfrey) will be upset with this book," Kelley says. "She's not going to be pleased with what some people have said, but ..."

(Winfrey, who is ending her iconic daytime talk show on Sept. 9, 2011, has announced that she will appear in a new series called Oprah's Next Chapter on her own cable network in late 2011.)

Despite a reputation for playing loose with the facts, Kelley has never been successfully sued over any of her books.

"I'm very proud of that. And I write about people who are very powerful when they're alive. It's all documented. It's all solid stuff."

Some critics say that's just not true. In fact, her books have been famously dubbed "Kitty Litter."

Who's next?

After her last book, 2004's The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, journalist/commentator and New Republic senior editor Michael Crowley analyzed Kelley's work in Slate. The piece is titled "Kitty Kelley: Colonoscopist to the Stars."

"Kelley's ostentatious display of reportorial overkill is clearly just a ritual effort to pre-empt the questions that inevitably arise about her accuracy," he wrote. "After close to 30 years and five breathless tell-alls, it's clear Kelley is no meticulous historian who nails down her facts with airtight precision. To the contrary, she's the consummate gossip monger, a vehicle for all the rumor and innuendo surrounding her illustrious subjects."

Time magazine columnist Joe Klein has described her as a "professional sensationalist."

Kelley has heard it all before and admits "it's a killer" to defend herself at times. "I'd like them to say (the accusations) right to me and show me where (I made a mistake)," she says.

Crowley conceded that Kelley usually gets more right than wrong. "Her methods may often be unsound ... but in the end, she usually reveals something true about her subjects — which is more than you can say about a lot of celebrity biographers."

Kelley says she doesn't worry about her physical safety. But she says she probably should have after her 1986 tell-all on Sinatra, which did not portray him in a flattering light. After the Nancy Reagan book was released in 1991, she discovered that her publisher had provided a bodyguard at a book event at the National Press Club. "I did get death threats after the Reagan book," Kelley says. "Anonymous phone messages."

As for the upcoming reaction to the Oprah book, Kelley just shrugs. "I don't know what I'm braced for," she says.

Kelley, who has served guests ice water in crystal glasses on napkins that say Buy The Book, says she's also not sure what's next on her agenda.

"I'm not the kind who can go from one project to the next. It's a little like going on a bender. You have to recuperate," she says.

"But I can't imagine doing another book on anyone as fascinating as Oprah. I love Oprah. She gave me a gift."

What she is writing is an article for The American Scholar, the quarterly magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

Its title: "In Defense of the Unauthorized Biography."

WHAT KELLEY DISHES ON

Highlights from biographer Kitty Kelley's newest book, Oprah: A Biography:

Celebrities comment on whether Winfrey and best friend Gayle King are lesbian partners:

• "I think they are the emotional equivalent of a gay couple," says Rosie O'Donnell, who is gay. "When they did that road trip together that's as gay as it gets and I don't mean it to be an insult either. I'm just saying listen, if you ask me, that's a gay couple." (The quote comes from O'Donnell's appearance on The Howard Stern Show in October 2009.)
• Winfrey confidant and author Erica Jong, adds: "I would not be surprised if Oprah is gay. If she is, she is. It certainly fits."

Names Winfrey and King affectionately call each other, revealed on a Valentine's Day segment titled 'Girlfriends':

• "Oprah was 'Negro,' Gayle was 'Blackie,' " Kelley writes.

Is boyfriend Stedman Graham just a front, 'camouflage'?

• "Her close friends argued otherwise, saying he was the grounding force of her life. Others did not care one way or the other," Kelley writes.
• "Stedman is probably gay or neutral, but they have a bond. Her being gay would be the right reaction to the sexual abuse she says she's suffered and the mistrust she's always had of men," Winfrey's longtime friend Jong says.

Winfrey had a baby boy at 15, who died one month and 8 days later:

• "Oprah never talked about her lost baby," said her sister, Patricia, a drug addict who died in 2003 of an overdose. "It was a deep family secret that was almost never discussed within the family."
• "Everybody in the family sort of shoved it under a rock," Winfrey told Ebony. "Because I had already been involved in sexual promiscuity they thought if anything happened it had to be my fault and because I couldn't definitely say that he (her uncle Trent) was the father, the issue became 'Is he the father?' Not the abuse."

Winfrey's falling-outs with friends on the set of The Color Purple:

• "She forged strong friendships on the set, but few survived the passage of time," Kelley writes. She "fell out" with Whoopi Goldberg, "tangled" with screenwriter Akosua Busia, "pulled away" from Alice Walker and "offended" Steven Spielberg.

Oprah to Announce New Evening Show

The Wall Street Journal

The Queen of Daytime Is Becoming Nocturnal; A Big Bet for Her Network

America's daytime talk-show queen is heading out at night.

Oprah Winfrey plans to announce Thursday that she will host an evening show on her new cable network. The aptly named "Oprah's Next Chapter," an hourlong show, will probably debut late next year.

Ms. Winfrey's new show, which could air as many as two or three times a week, will take Ms. Winfrey out of the studio setting that has been her home for nearly 25 years and follow her around the globe for conversations in places such as Egypt and China. "I'm going to take viewers with me, going to take celebrities I want to interview with me" around the world, Ms. Winfrey said in an interview.

The larger task will be taking advertisers and viewers along to the new Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN. Ms. Winfrey right now has a vast audience, many women at home during the day, who follow by the millions her every tip on what to read, eat, wear, and buy. But the new network will be programming 24 hours a day. And Ms. Winfrey herself will face a formidable lineup of evening reality shows. Some, like NBC's "The Biggest Loser," CBS's "Undercover Boss," or Fox's "American Idol," include the inspirational and instructional tales that Ms. Winfrey excels at.

The new show is one of more than a dozen programs that OWN has lined up as it moves toward its scheduled debut on Jan. 1. A 50-50 joint venture between Ms. Winfrey's Harpo Inc. and cable programmer Discovery Communications Inc., the new network plans to give a detailed look at its shows in a presentation to advertisers Thursday.

"Oprah's Next Chapter" is a crucial ingredient for the new network. Ms. Winfrey, 56 years old, has until now said little publicly about her on-air role at OWN after "The Oprah Winfrey Show" ends in 2011. "Having Oprah on the network in a meaningful way is important," said David Zaslav, Discovery's chief executive.



Ms. Winfrey said she also may appear in other OWN shows including a possible book-club show. "My name's going to show up on that grid a lot," she said.

The new slate of shows is part of OWN executives' efforts to translate Ms. Winfrey's popular brand of personal uplift into the mold of a 24-hour television network. A reality series about country singer Shania Twain will follow her recovery from a broken marriage. A competition series from "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett will search for a new TV-show star among Ms. Winfrey's legions of fans.

Ms. Winfrey's embrace of cable reflects a broader shift in the television business. Buoyed by billions of dollars from satellite and cable subscribers' monthly bills, cable networks have become profit engines of the business. Meanwhile, local television stations, which long paid handsomely for programs like "The Oprah Winfrey Show," have seen their business decline.

Ms. Winfrey has one of the most powerful brands in media. Her magazine, "O, The Oprah Magazine," published with Hearst Corp., is one of the most popular in the U.S., and her book club has minted dozens of best-sellers. But as broadcast TV has sagged, so has her audience. Her weekday show averaged about 6.7 million viewers so far this TV season, according to Nielsen Co., down from more than 10 million in the early 1990s.

Ms. Winfrey has been closely involved in strategy and planning for OWN and its shows, according to people familiar with the matter. "I am hands on, digging in there, looking through every tape," Ms. Winfrey said. "I'm not just up to my knees. I'm up to my thighs."

Her longtime producer is the network's new chief creative officer. Last week, Ms. Winfrey spent two days working at OWN's Los Angeles headquarters, where green and orange walls are adorned with inspirational phrases including, "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."

OWN began taking shape more than two years ago in conversations between Ms. Winfrey and Discovery's Mr. Zaslav. She was looking for her next step. He was looking for something compelling to do with the little-watched Discovery Health network, which is in about 74 million U.S. homes, according to media researcher SNL Kagan.

OWN's launch has been pushed back since the venture was announced in January 2008. One person familiar with the matter attributed the delays, in part, to waiting for Ms. Winfrey to decide the extent of her on-air role. Ms. Winfrey said that wasn't the case, and said assembling the right staff and programming tone has taken time.

"It has been more difficult building a team from scratch than I realized it would be," Ms. Winfrey said.

"Start-ups are hard, for sure," said Christina Norman, the former MTV president who was named OWN's chief executive in January 2009. "I think it's always a challenge to find the right groove," she said.

Discovery is wagering $100 million on OWN. The Silver Spring, Md., company has promised to lend that much in start-up costs through September 2011 and has sunk in $35 million through Dec. 31, according to securities filings. Discovery will also contribute Discovery Health, replacing it with OWN when the new network goes live on Jan. 1. Ms. Winfrey, for her part, is contributing her Oprah.com site to the venture.

Ms. Winfrey's public role in OWN could help it begin nailing down advertising deals. Buyers say that OWN is looking to sign on several major advertisers for multiyear partnerships that would include both advertising and product integrations in shows. The network is asking between $10 million and $15 million for those packages, a person familiar with the matter said.

For several months, OWN has been working to finalize an elaborate advertising and sponsorship pact with Procter & Gamble Co., but talks have bogged down in part over price, according to people familiar with the matter. One person familiar with the talks pegged the value of the package at well over $20 million.

The network is using Ms. Winfrey's ability to attract high-profile talent. One OWN series, "Visionaries: Inside the Creative Mind," will highlight pop musician Lady Gaga and movie director James Cameron, among others. Another show, "Master Class," will feature people like former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and musician Jay-Z relaying life stories and lessons directly into the camera.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, said Ms. Winfrey asked him to participate during a phone call. "I didn't even think about it," Mr. Carter said last month. "I just said 'yes.'"

OWN's Ms. Norman has been working with her staff to assemble about 1,200 hours of original and acquired programming for the first year on the air. One focus has been keeping the right tone, she said. "The hard thing for us internally as we talk about these themes has been that they're not spinach," she said. "The job is to crack open these great ideas and make them accessible to everyone, and make them entertaining."

Ms. Winfrey echoed that idea, saying, "If it's going to be spinach, it needs a little truffle salt."

Oprah Acts as Mediator in Letterman's Super Bowl Ad