We, BarterNews, have been contending for years that the “Best & Brightest” use barter in the building of their wealth…here is another example of our message.

Discovery Communications and Oprah Winfrey have announced a deal where the Discovery Health network will be bartered to Winfrey next year, and become OWN — the Oprah Winfrey Network.

The cash-free transaction involved Winfrey turning over half ownership of her Web site (6 million unique visitors a month) to Discovery, while the communications company makes her chairman of the network, which currently is available to be seen in 68 million homes. The two entities will be joint owners, i.e. 50/50 in ownership and profits.

What’s the value of the deal? Hard to say at this point as Winfrey’s star power will generate greater revenue from cable companies once she comes aboard with her programming in mid 2009…but cable TV networks don’t come cheap. When Microsoft invested in MSNBC back in 1996 it put up $300 million for its half stake in a startup. (And Bill Gates is a tough negotiator.)

The focus of the channel will be Oprah’s brand–to educate and inspire people to live the best life they can.

Some of Winfrey’s stable of regular contributors could be expected to be part of the programming. Winfrey’s current talk show, as well as rights to use of reruns, is spoken for until the end of the 2010-11 season.

Would you like to learn the strategies & techniques that Oprah and other mega-business moguls use to create wealth, then see: FastStart

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Best & Brightest Barter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.