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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 1podstock who wrote (41667)	3/18/2002 6:14:40 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

What's Next for Oprah? FORTUNE.COM April 1, 2002 "I don't think of myself as a businesswoman," talk-show empress Oprah Winfrey announces at the beginning of the first extensive interview she's given to a business publication. "....There's this part of me that's afraid of what will happen if I believe it all." Despite her protestations, Oprah is at the helm of a mighty successful business. She may not be able to read a balance sheet, but that didn't stop her from creating a $1 billion media empire. At its foundation is The Oprah Winfrey Show with its 22 million U.S. viewers, but she's been branching out into magazines, movie production, cable TV, and the Internet. Her two-year-old magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine, is the most successful startup ever in the industry. Her movie production division turns out award-winning television films like Tuesdays With Morrie and brings in about $4 million a year. She also holds a substantial stake in Oxygen Media, a cable TV company for women. She's at the peak of her power--and frankly, she's confused. In the fall she told FORTUNE that she was "at a crossroads. Not a crisis, but a juncture." Then in mid-March, Harpo Inc. disclosed that Oprah would quit her show after the 2005-06 season, her 20th year in talk TV. If she truly quits her show in four years (keep in mind that Oprah has publicly contemplated quitting her show before and is notorious for spur-of-the-moment decisions), the question, indeed, is, What's next? In her interviews with FORTUNE, Oprah talked at length about her desire to do something more with her time and money, something significant. What might her next endeavors be? And how did she turn Oprah Inc. into such a powerhouse business?