SiriusXM has ended their radio marriage with Oprah Winfrey. On Jan. 1, SiriusXM discontinued the Oprah Channel, after an eight year deal where the satellite radio giant shelled out money to use Oprah’s name. According to The New York Daily News, Oprah’s Harpo Productions inked a deal in February 2006 where XM Radio at the time shelled out $55 million over a three year period to create “Oprah and Friends”, which the media titan would program and have broadcast from her studios in Chicago. The deal was a major coupe at the time for XM Radio as they were locked in bitter war against rival Sirius Radio at the time. The channel’s name was then changed to Oprah Radio, where it featured original shows from favorites of The Oprah Winfrey Show such as Dr. Oz, Nate Berkus, and Oprah’s bestie Gayle King, which were repeated to fill the out the 24-hour format.
In a released statement SiriusXM said:
Harpo Radio and SiriusXM have announced that the production of Oprah Radio content on SiriusXM ended effective Jan. 1. Since its launch, the channel has provided informative and uplifting daily programming for SiriusXM listeners who are striving to live their best lives.
So far, Oprah and Harpo has yet to comment about the radio network going off the air.
SiriusXM Pulls Plug On Oprah Radio was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
