When Oprah Winfrey moves her talk show from network TV to her own cable network in 2011, it will reshape the landscape of afternoon television. After 25 years on the air, the immensely popular program has become an economic powerhouse. Who stands to lose the most in Oprah’s big switch? (Watch a CNN discussion about Oprah's declining ratings)
It’s bad news for CBS and ABC: Oprah's move to cable stands to cost CBS hundreds of millions of dollars "in license fees and advertising revenue," says Joe Flint in the Los Angeles Times. For it's part, ABC is "probably not too happy" as many of its larger affiliates carried the show, and "it delivered a sizeable audience to their local news."
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