Oprah resurrected her OWN career: what can she do for Lance Armstrong?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/jan/09/oprah-winfrey-own-lance-armstrong

Version 0 of 1.

I remember Oprah – she's the one who used to be Gayle King's best friend. Didn't she have a TV show in which she read books, lost and gained weight and gave away cars? There was a guy called Dr Phil and a bunch of Favorite Things and one time Tom Cruise came to jump all over her couch.

It was Oprah who taught me how to be my Best Self, which was good, because one day she just up and disappeared on me. They said she'd gone to cable, but I couldn't find her. Maybe I didn't try hard enough, maybe it's because I can't go above channel 600 on my service. But Oprah had gone, and all I had left was The View.

I stopped by her website once or twice, looking for her, but there were only so many times I could click on The Hair She Used to Wear and it was discouraging that her interactive timeline ended in 2009. What had happened? Had she retired?

No way guys! Oprah Winfrey is BACK. Just like in a fairy tale, or the segment after commercial, she has been reborn in a bright red dress on this week's cover of the Hollywood Reporter, as one of AdAge's Most Influential Women in Advertising. She also beaten Barbara, Diane – even Katie! – to land the interview of the DECADE. It's just like the old days. Put that in your Spanx, Gayle.

Next Thursday, 17 January, Oprah will sit down with Lance Armstrong in one of her Next Chapter "enlightening and in-depth conversations" on her cable channel, OWN. It will be a crucial 90 minutes for both of them. Armstrong has already hinted he is ready to come clean about the doping allegations that have dogged and ruined his cycling career. It's up to Oprah to tease that confession out of him. If she succeeds, the interview will mark his permanent demise while crowning her own comeback. Talk about a Next Chapter.

It turns out that Oprah has been working on her next chapter all along, even if us fair-weather friends had stopped paying attention. Forget what you heard about things not going well at OWN. So what if staff turnover was rapid? Oprah's made herself the CEO and she's going nowhere. If – like me – you stopped buying O Magazine, causing a precipitous drop in its circulation, well Oprah doesn't care. She'll shut it down if she needs to.

"You know you are in your sweet spot when whatever you're doing gives you energy instead of depleting it," she wrote recently, with her usual take-no-prisoners confidence.

"In 1992, I wrote in my journal that one day I would create a television network... OWN is now a reality... My intention has always been to bring little pieces of light into the lives of others. With OWN, we now have a platform that can do that seven days a week on a 24-hour cable channel."

OWN is available in about 85 million homes and viewers are tuning in. Oprah has been industriously wooing them. She's recently announced four new original series for this year, including a documentary, a drama and a comedy from Tyler Perry. She's continuing with Oprah's Master Class, Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Oprah's Next Chapter and the motivational Iyanla: Fix My Life. (Fans of Sarah Ferguson, prepare for disappointment. She won't be coming back for a repeat of Finding Sarah.)

Oprah's ratings have risen solidly but, more importantly, she has turned her attention from network to the internet. She has her own section on the Huffington Post, her Book Club 2.0 takes place mainly on Twitter (while maintaining its Midas best-seller touch) and her interviews are live-streamed online.

To date, the highest rated show on OWN was Oprah's interview with the Houston family after Whitney's death last year. Almost 3.5 million viewers tuned in. The Armstrong "no-holds-barred exclusive" looks set to shatter that record. But don't expect her to be nervous.

"The way I approach every interview is to use my own sort of Super Soul training," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "You allow the presence in you to speak to the presence in the other person. You drop the facade and you really see soul to soul with somebody."

Good luck, Lance.