Viewers want Oprah, not her network

Oprah Winfrey, the master of getting guests to open up, has a few things of her own to say. Did I say a few? During a news conference last week in conjunction with the launch of her OWN network, Winfrey was asked to reflect on her childhood dreams.

Her answer clocked in at more than 18 minutes. During the breathless sermon, she gabbed about:

Watching TV at a Sears & Roebuck store in small-town Mississippi because her grandmother thought owning a set was like inviting the devil to move in.

Her long-ago fantasy of hosting "Good Morning America," only to be told that there wasn't room for a black anchor as long as Bryant Gumbel was on the air.

Her heartbreak over the fact that Michael Jackson never truly reveled in the success of "Thriller."

Why she stopped signing autographs for her studio audience.

Her fascination with brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor's book "My Stroke of Insight."

Why she never watches TV in bed.

Her secret recipe for buttermilk biscuits.

A step-by-step explanation of "Inception."

Actually, I'm not sure about those last two topics, because I started paying more attention to my fellow reporters, waiting for them to collectively squirm, cough a few times and then start grousing about the microphone hog on stage. Didn't happen. Everyone was in an "O" trance, the same one she conjured at a cocktail party attended by Mike Tyson. He might as well have been a busboy.

Everybody massed around Winfrey as if she were handing out keys to a fleet of new cars.

That power, of course, is why some pundits believe a network that revolves around her personality — an unprecedented attempt — can work and draw top-of-the-line talent.

"If Oprah had asked me to ride a unicycle naked and backwards in the night, I would have said, 'Where do I sign up?'" said "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett, who has added "My OWN Show," a search for a new TV personality, to a heavy production workload that also includes "The Apprentice."

So far, Oprah's network has attracted such show regulars as Dr. Phil and Suze Orman, as well as the Judds, Ryan O'Neal and Shania Twain.

What it has not yet attracted is a rabid audience.