We feel like we’ve said this a hundred times already, but a big-name content creator has just signed on to the Apple streaming service we still know nothing about. The new addition is Oprah Winfrey, who Variety says is now in a “multi-year content partnership” with Apple to create programs of some kind for this streaming service. She’s joining recent additions like David Gordon Green’s Emily Dickinson comedy (starring Hailee Steinfeld), the animated comedy from the Bob’s Burgers team (starring Josh Gad), whatever La La Land’s Damien Chazelle is doing, and an anthology series about immigrants from Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon.
We don’t know what Winfrey is planning, but we do know it most likely won’t involve her appearing onscreen very much—so that means no Oprah Winfrey Show reboot. Despite selling the majority of her OWN network to Discovery last year, Winfrey still has an exclusivity deal with the network that only allows for limited non-OWN appearances like her 60 Minutes correspondent role or her occasional acting jobs on HBO.
That being said, we noted in our report that her exclusivity deal was for “basic cable,” so the fact that Apple is doing a streaming thing might give Winfrey a loophole if she wants to be on one of Reese Witherspoon’s Apple shows.
