TVSquad

I work at home now, which is how I've discovered the wonder and glory of daytime television. If you're at all like me, then you really need to go someplace other than your house and Target. Also, you watch Ellen every day. On nearly every show lately, Ellen has been campaigning to get on the cover of O Magazine.

Ellen has made it clear that she doesn't want to be on the cover alone-- with Ms. Winfrey would be perfectly acceptable. She has also made it clear that she will stop at nothing to achieve her goal. After snafus that included calling Harpo Studios to speak with Oprah and being left on hold for 11 minutes, only to be told that Oprah was in a meeting, it looks as though Ellen's dream may have finally come true.

DeGeneres posted the following on her official Twitter feed: "Oprah just asked me to be on the cover of O magazine!" Now, since it's Twitter, there's no further explanation or confirmation. I, however, choose to take it at face and congratulate Ellen on reaching her goal-- and beginning her takeover of Oprah's empire.

Recently, TV columnist Aaron Barnhart took note of the fact that Oprah Winfrey's show is sinking in the ratings. Her talk show, which is the centerpiece of her multimedia success -- a success that has made her the richest woman in show business -- has been losing ratings consistently for the last six months. At first blush, the politically minded of you might think it's because she endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, but I think it's more than that. After all, if anything, the vast amount of grassroots support that the Senator from Illinois has engendered might be a plus for Oprah rather than a minus.

Therefore, there have to be other factors to explain why Oprah's landmark TV talk show has lost its luster -- at least ratings-wise. I've come up with six possible reasons.

When I look at some of the people who have emerged as today's biggest stars on TV, I scratch my head and wonder, "how did that happen?" There are a few stars who have completely exceeded my expectations -- and I bet yours, too. In fact, after you read my five (no cell phone pun intended), I'm betting that you'll have a few more overachievers to add to the list.

1) Ty Pennington
I'm not ashamed to admit that for a couple of years I was hooking on TLC's Trading Spaces. It may have been the perky Paige Davis, the home improvement on a $1,000, the cool things that the designers did in just 24 hours -- whatever it was, I was a regular viewer. Oh, yes, there was also a carpenter on the show named Ty Pennington.

Please file this item under the "Duh" file: Dr. Mehmet Oz, Oprah's favorite medical expert, is getting a spin-off talk show. Harpo Productions, Oprah's company, is developing a Dr. Oz talk show to commence fall of 2009.

According to insiders, the Harpo team had meetings with distributor in Chicago last month. A medical talker with Doc Oz, which I bet will be called Ask Dr. Oz -- the name of his successful segments on Oprah's show -- would follow in the footsteps of Dr. Phil. Remember, Dr. Phil McGraw began his life as a talker by appearing on Oprah in infrequent hours that were a de facto pilot for his own talk show. Dr. Phil then launched in 2002, as a Harpo production, and has been a big time hit. He's even challenged Oprah in some markets.

Kirstie Alley is coming back to the small screen and Oprah's got her. Harpo Productions has signed Alley for future TV projects. It could be a sitcom like Fat Actress, it could be a talk show, like the one she shopped around last year, but in whatever format, Harpo will be behind it. One definite possibility would be for Kirstie to appear in a show on OWN, the new Oprah Winfrey Network, which used to be Discovery Health Channel.

Just like Disney and NBC before her, Oprah is opening up her own store for Oprah-themed merchandise. It's going to be in Chicago, naturally, adjacent to Harpo Studios where she currently films her show.

The store is supposed to draw the Oprah audiences inside after they view a taping, but it will inevitably become a draw for just about anyone as Oprah is both the Queen of the World and the High Empress of Chicago.

Items available in the store will be pretty much the same stuff you can find in the Oprah Boutique on her website, such as the Oprah iPod cover, African crafts, clothing, DVDs, and the baby gear. It would actually be neat if the store would also feature some of her "favorite things" that she lists in each edition of her magazine.

[Via TV Tattle]

Yeah, sure, I was snookered. Oprah dipped into the Viral Marketing 101 handbook when she ran promos asking, "What is the secret?" It wasn't enough to get me to watch Oprah, but I did investigate online to find out what "secret" was being kept from me by the good people at Harpo Productions.

What "secret" could Oprah possibly have left to share? Over the years, she's told me to embrace my spirit, cut out the "white" stuff, wear cotton underwear and drive a Pontiac. Apparently, Oprah's "secret" is The Secret by Rhonda Byrne - another in a long line of vaguely spiritual Four Agreements/Celestine Prophecy/Miracle Matrix self-help tomes.

ABC and Oprah's production company, Harpo Productions, will team up for a special about how Oprah built a school in South Africa for disadvantaged girls. The special will chronicle Oprah's five-year effort to get the school built. The school is called The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy (did she really have to name it after herself?). It's pretty sweet- with computer and science labs, a library, theater and "wellness center". It opened up in January after Oprah personally selected the 152 students who would be lucky enough to attend.

The upcoming ABC special also includes a long list of celebrity appearances including Tina Turner, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Sidney Poitier, Chris Tucker and Spike Lee.

Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy will air at 10 pm on Monday, February 26th. That is the last day of this month's ratings period.

Patrick Crowe is not one of Oprah's favorite things.

The writer and entrepreneur has been pushing an "Oprah in 08" campaign via a web site (and soon a self-published book), and now Oprah's lawyers have heard about it and have sent a five page letter telling him "stop it!" The Smoking Gun, of course, has the letter here.

I can understand how they'd have a case against the guy for using copyrighted photos and having a web site with the name Oprah in it and a phone number with Oprah's name, but telling him he can't use the name Oprah on the book cover or have a license plate with the name Oprah on it? Hmmm....

Larry King's guest on CNN last night was cooking show/talk show/magazine icon Rachael Ray. After a truly disturbing segue from talking about the autopsy of Anna Nicole Smith's son to talking to Ray about salad and pasta, they show footage of Ray taking Larry shopping (I swear Larry has never shopped before) and talked about Oprah's non-stop praise of Ray (Oprah, um, produces Ray's show). But the truly odd thing about the interview were the number of bizarre questions and/or statements made by Larry and Rachael. Some of them are out of context, but most of them are bizarre no matter what the context:

"Has your pit bull ever killed anyone?" (Larry)

Oprah has a lot of money, but she recently insisted in a speech to the Harvard Business School that money, as the old adage goes, can't buy happiness. I would add that it can still buy you love, although I'm pretty sure that's still illegal in most states. The Chicago Sun-Times has a funny piece on Oprah and how much money a real fan would have to slap down for her cable show, print publications, XM radio channel, Oprah's Book Club books, and various items adorned with Oprah's name. By its calculations, it would cost $572.86. The point, apparently, is that these items are quite expensive for your average Oprah fan. I suppose that's true, but it's not as if Oprah is the only celebrity to venture into other forms of media and lend her name to commercial products.