NEW YORK- Oprah Winfrey has signed a three-year, $55 million deal with XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. to launch a new radio channel beginning in September, Winfrey and XM announced Thursday.
The new channel, “Oprah &Friends,” will air programming on fitness, health and self-improvement topics with personalities that appear on Winfrey’s TV program, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” as well as in O, The Oprah Magazine.
Despite the title of the channel, Winfrey herself will have only a limited presence herself, appearing only once a week for a 30-minute taped program, 39 weeks a year, along with her longtime friend Gayle King.
“This is really about my friends,” Winfrey said. “I like all of these people and feel that they have something to offer the audience. This is more about them than it is about me.”
Winfrey did say, however, that she would have an active role in programming the channel, which will be broadcast mainly out of new studios built at her Chicago offices.
The $55 million deal is a far cry from the five-year, cash-and-stock deal that rival satellite radio broadcaster Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. has with morning shock jock Howard Stern. Winfrey’s deal with XM does not include any stock.
Originally worth $500 million when it was signed in 2004, Stern’s deal is now worth $600 million due to appreciation of Sirius’ stock price. XM also has signed other big programming contracts, including an 11-year, $650 million deal for Major League Baseball.
Winfrey’s new channel on XM will feature personalities that appear on her show and in her magazine including Bob Greene, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Nate Berkus.
The Winfrey news and an unrelated positive analyst report helped send XM’s shares up $1.17, or 4.8 percent, to close at $25.78 in heavy trading Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Sirius’ shares fell 18 cents to close at $5.80, also on the Nasdaq.
XM and Sirius are locked in a fierce competition to sign up programming and new subscribers as they both strive to reach profitability. Each service costs about $13 a month and offers dozens of channels of commercial-free music as well as other channels of talk and news.
XM, which is based in Washington, D.C., is the larger of the two, with more than 6 million subscribers, while the New York-based Sirius has more than 3 million.
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