OWN

In a bold move, taking her landmark syndicated show off the air, Oprah Winfrey is moving to a larger stage — her own cable network, OWN. The Oprah Winfrey Network, backed by Discovery, launches on Saturday, Jan. 1, a day normally reserved for parades and football. Here’s a roundup of some of the pre-premiere coverage.

Those competiting for a slot hosting their own show on Oprah Winfrey’s new network include a travel guide who’s in a wheelchair, a comedian who thinks the U.S. needs a gay best friend, and a businesswoman aiming to make a show about money both informative and fun.

“Phase one” of the marketing effort aims to manage expectations that it’s not 24/7 Oprah on the new cable network that debuts Saturday.

OWN, Oprah Winfrey’s forthcoming cable channel, will be carried by Cablevision, the companies said Tuesday. The carriage agreement is important because Cablevision was one of the last big gaps in OWN’s distribution footprint, and because Cablevision serves a large swath of the New York metropolitan area. The agreement came just days before OWN’s Jan. 1 start date.

Given all the media attention around the Jan. 1 launch of OWN — the cable network owned by daytime talk queen Oprah Winfrey and Discovery Communications — there are probably over-the-top expectations that the channel will explode right out of the box. Odds are that won’t be the case.

Oprah Winfrey’s cable venture denied a report on Wednesday that it was in talks to hire Terry Wood, a television guru who groomed Phil McGraw, Rachael Ray and other stars of syndication.

The Queen of Daytime and partner Discovery are betting big that Oprah Winfrey’s OWN cable channel can draw daytime viewers away from broadcast TV to watch a lineup of first-run talk shows, cooking programs and other material aimed at women. If OWN’s strategy works, it could whack TV stations’ ratings and ad dollars. And it may ignite an assault by other cable networks on broadcasters in a daypart where they haven’t had much luck so far.