Will Daytime TV be the same?

First the soaps, now, Oprah? What's a girl to watch?

I try hard to be too busy to watch daytime TV, but once in a while, I've been known to cuddle up with Oprah or Dr. Phil before and during Y&R. There were a few weeks last year I tried hard to be home on Tuesdays, because that's when Dr. Phil had his horrible housewives segments, with a group of unhappy, women duking it out, complete with the off-camera slagging. There were moments it made MMA look tame.

I became a fan of Dr. Phil when he had regular segments on Oprah, mostly because I liked how he gave people s**t for behaviour that could only be described as terrible. I was and remain surprised at how shocked the badly behaved are at being called out. In the early 90s, when Dr. Laura had just started her radio show, I'm sure people thought she was just a regular advice-giver, and would call up for help with the most bizarre scenarios, only to be blasted by the irascible host. She became less fun later on, but for a few years there, it was hilarious.

Unintentionally funny is the best funny, to my mind.

(If only Dr. Laura had Oprah backing her, things would have turned out so differently for her...)

Of course, Oprah Winfrey has made off like a bandit telling us to "be who we are", while very publicly fighting her demons. Even as she created the careers of Drs. Phil and Oz, she created 2.5 billion dollars in wealth for herself. Not bad at all, and there's more to come, of course, since she now has her own cable channel.

I just wonder what reality show will replace her at four o'clock in the fall.
I'm hoping for something about show choirs.