BOB GARFIELD: Midas, Schmidas! What you want to have is the Oprah touch.

[CLIP]:

OPRAH WINFREY: Here is the deal: If your box has a key, you will be the last person today to get one of those cute little G6s.

[AUDIENCE CHEERS/APPLAUSE] Maybe I should take all of you - with me -

[AUDIENCE CHEERS] - to the other side of the world!

[AUDIENCE CHEERS/OPRAH SHOUTS] - to, three. You get a car, you get a car, you get a car.

[CONTINUOUS JOYOUS SHOUTS/CHEERS]

[END CLIP]

BOB GARFIELD: Whatever that woman gets behind turns into a blockbuster, first her syndicated TV show, then O Magazine, not to mention every book she features on her program. Oprah is a maker of hits, at least so far. As of January 1st, Oprah will have her own cable channel called, in fact, OWN, so naturally this will be a huge shot in the arm for cable TV, right? Well, maybe and maybe not. Oprah is making her move just as cable, the relatively robust half of the TV business, is beginning to fray at the edges. Here to talk more about the challenges ahead for Oprah is Advertising Age’s television editor Brian Steinberg. Brian, welcome back to the show.

BRIAN STEINBERG: Hi, how are you, Bob?

BOB GARFIELD: Well, thank you. So let's start with history. Moving from broadcast to cable hasn't always been a particularly smooth transition, huh?

BRIAN STEINBERG: Well, it depends who it is. But what’s definitely going to happen is you’re going to get smaller audiences at any given time. I mean, Conan O’Brien is not getting Tonight Show audiences. He is getting a good healthy chunk of young viewers. Martha Stewart recently made a journey from daytime syndicated programming to Hallmark. That has not been a good move. Her shows are not doing very well on Hallmark. There are economic challenges when you trade in a bigger audience on broadcast to the fragmentation of cable.

BOB GARFIELD: And complicating the problem, cable subscriptions, the total cable universe, isn't going in the right direction.

BRIAN STEINBERG: That's right. There is this new phenomenon they call it over-the-top TV viewing where you watch TV through an interface that is not your TV set tube. I mean, maybe you’re watching Google TV or you’re watching Hulu or you’re streaming through Netflix or you’re watching it through a video game device. There is a lot of scrambling going around, and a lot of handwringing about how to get people to pay for the shows when they're not paying for the subscription that would bring them into the house.

BOB GARFIELD: Now, we've discussed the risk but you recently quoted a guy from the industry who said this is not a normal startup because she’s going to bring her established audience with her.

BRIAN STEINBERG: First of all, this is an already existing cable channel. They don't need to go out and convince Time Warner and Cox and Comcast to pick this channel up. It’s already there. Now you have the process of Oprah coming on board and, you know, advertisers have dealt with her for many years. They know the golden touch she brings when she brings a new car or when she brings a new book up there. And I think they're hoping that that kind of halo effect carries. Now, of course, the question is not every show on OWN is going to be featuring Oprah.

BOB GARFIELD: Give me a for instance. What’s the schedule look like?

BRIAN STEINBERG: Well, I would expect this to be written in sand rather than stone. They are bringing Rosie O’Donnell. She’s going to do a show called Master Class, which is, you know, about artisans and artists, people who will offer kind of their take on their lives. There’s, you know, various Oprah figures, like Dr. Phil, and there’s a sex therapy program. There’s a show featuring Ashley Judd, a show featuring Sarah Ferguson. There’s a reality show, Behind the Scenes, of Oprah’s last year on broadcast [LAUGHS] TV. The themes are generally wellness and good life and good living and that sort of thing.

BOB GARFIELD: And aspiration and -

BRIAN STEINBERG: Yeah.

BOB GARFIELD: - redemption and other familiar Oprah themes, so you can get an Oprah-esque experience every time you click on the channel. It makes me wonder if - what if Oprah could be the first programmer who created kind of a home page of her cable channel that 20 million women around the United States, when they turn on their TV, it would be OWN and the TV would stay on OWN all day to get this Oprah-like fare? Is that even within the realm of possibility?

BRIAN STEINBERG: Oh, I think so. I mean, you know, technology is changing so quickly, and I do think, you know, the idea of using the TV screen as an interface to surf the Web and watch streaming video are all coming. Yes, there is a notion of Oprah being kind of a central figure who might be your landing page, just like when you turn the TV on sometimes your cable news comes on and, and you can then flip from there.

BOB GARFIELD: Bottom line, Brian, we're looking at an industry that has been enormously profitable but is facing some very big challenges from fragmentation and from people canceling their cable TV subscriptions. And then there’s Oprah, who succeeds at everything she tries. It’s kind of like an irresistible force against an unmovable object. What is going to happen? She can't possibly succeed in this environment. But is she gonna?

BRIAN STEINBERG: Do I think this is going to launch 100 percent smoothly? No. Do I think they're going to change the schedule, yank programming and try new stuff very quickly? Yes. If you follow her launches, they take a long time. People come in and out. She’s an entrepreneur. She’s got a vision. She tries to articulate it. If you’re not getting it, move along. Her magazine kind of had a scattered launch where there would be an initial editor that left after a few months and they brought somebody else in. I don't think it’s going to be 100 percent success from the get-go. And I think the advertisers also expect there to be a little bit of to and fros and churn until they figure out what works and what doesn't.

BOB GARFIELD: If Oprah tapped you on the shoulder and said, hey Brian, come over and work with me, do you go?

BRIAN STEINBERG: I think I'd ask if I got a severance package or not.

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHING]

BRIAN STEINBERG: [LAUGHS] You can go with the idea that it'll be a two-year experiment, and if it works, it works.

BOB GARFIELD: Okay, Brian, thank you very, very much.

BRIAN STEINBERG: Thank you. [LAUGHS]

BOB GARFIELD: Brian Steinberg covers television for Advertising Age.

OPRAH WINFREY (AUTO-TUNED): ‘Cause, after all, this really is, really, really is my 25th season.

[AUDIENCE RESPONSE] This is really my last chance to do something really, really big.

[AUDIENCE CHEERS/JOYOUS SHOUTS] Maybe I should take all of you – with me, to the other side of the world!

[MUSIC, AUDIENCE RESPONSE] ‘Cause after all, this really is, really, really is my 25th season.

[END CLIP]