Oprah Had To Make Sure She Could Get OWN On Her TV

Oprah Had To Make Sure She Could Get Her New Channel On Her TV

The New York Times' Brian Stelter took a lengthy look behind the scenes of the launch of the Oprah Winfrey Network. One of the things he discovered? Oprah was worried she wouldn't be able to get the channel on her own TV when it launched.

Before leaving for her shows in Australia, Stelter writes, Oprah made a request of her staff at her Los Angeles home: "Can you all make sure that I have the capabilities to get my own channel on my own TV?" She didn't want to have to go to a neighbor's house to watch the OWN launch.

As Stelter notes, Oprah is moving down several hundred places on peoples' remotes: from the iconic Channel 7 that ABC occupies to a less glamorous Channel 279 on DirectTV, for instance. To read the whole article, which also documents the tumultuous--and near-fatal--personnel and strategic shakeups that OWN went through, click here.

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