It was probably only a matter of time before Oprah Winfrey staked out a TV network of her very own, but now it's official: Oprah will launch her own cable channel, OWN, in mid-2009. She issued a statement saying:

Fifteen years ago, I wrote in my journal that one day I would create a television network, as I
always felt my show was just the beginning of what the future could hold. For me, the launch of The Oprah Winfrey Network is the evolution of the work I’ve been doing on television all these years and a natural extension of my show.

The channel will be part of Discovery's cable networks (which also include TLC and the Travel Channel) and will take over for the current Discovery Health network. It won't carry Oprah's talk show, at least at the start, because rights to new and repeat broadcasts are already spoken for through 2011. But the Associated Press reports that some of Oprah's regular contributors could find a home on OWN. Paging Dr. Phil!

Discovery says OWN — a pretty great acronym, if you ask me — will have the same mission statement as the rest of Oprah's ventures: inspiring people to live their best lives. So, do you think Oprah TV would be something you'd want to watch? Or is it all just a little too much?

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