The star of “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” is planning to a comeback to daytime TV and this time she’s bringing some friends. O’Donnell will team up with Dick Robertson and Scott Carlin who are syndication veterans for what is expected to be a talk show premiering in fall 2011.
That is “coincidentally” the time when “The Oprah Show” makes its final exit bringing about the question as to whether the new show will be the replacement. Insiders have refuted these claims and said that most ABC stations have already planned to replace the “Big O” void with local or news programming. They also pointed out that most of the stations were also not very comfortable with O’Donnell’s style of controversy.
O’Donnell started off “Rosie” as the “queen of nice” but later in its six-year run she became quite controversial and political. She carried this trait on into “The View” where it got her into more hot water. Robertson functioned as president of Warner Bros. Domestic TV Distribution (WBDTD) for seventeen years before moving into an advisory role in 2006. He was instrumental in the sales of “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” which won five consecutive awards at the Emmy’s for “best talk show”. Scott Carlin worked under Robertson for almost two decades at WBDTD and was part of the sales team of the “Rosie” show as well. His most recent role was as head of HBO Domestic Distribution.
The new show, which is expected to run on cable, will be produced by a company formed by O’Donnell, Robertson and Carlin. Given that the show will be produced outside the studio system, it is almost certain that the controversy will rage on when the show hits the small screen. As yet, the show remains unnamed.