Don’t Believe the Oprah Hype

February 10, 2006

Howard started the show talking about Oprah Winfrey’s recently announced deal with XM Radio. According to reports Howard read about Oprah’s XM contract, she not only had her own studio built in Chicago, but will also only have to do a 30-minute show each week for 39 weeks. Howard added that the deal is worth a whopping $55 million. After Howard read an article stating that Oprah’s contract is much more lucrative than his SIRIUS deal if it’s looked at on an hour-to-hour basis, he mentioned that XM execs were so desperate to make an announcement to take away some of his momentum, they overpaid Oprah for a project that, in his mind, is likely to fail.

Howard commented that he felt sorry for Oprah’s fans because, while they think they’ll be hearing her nonstop, they’ll soon find out that she’s on for just a short amount of time each day. Howard went on to say that Oprah can’t turn down money, but that she’ll quickly realize that putting together a satellite channel is a great deal of work. Howard added that, due to all her commitments, Oprah will either stretch herself out too thin to make her channel work or her channel will be so beyond repair that she won’t bother putting too much work into it and it’ll go away when her contract expires in three years. Howard also noted that he was recently offered “an incredible business opportunity,” but that he couldn’t accept it because of the time commitment he has to both SIRIUS and iNDEMAND.