Entertainment

Oprah’s headache

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Oprah Winfrey is shaking up the top ranks of her new cable network again — just a month before it is due to launch.

OWN, as the much-anticipated Oprah Winfrey Network is to be called, has had more than its fair share of trouble getting off the ground.

Now, the queen of daytime is bringing the TV exec credited with getting Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray on the air.

Terry Wood, Oprah’s go-to woman at CBS, which had syndicated her afternoon TV show, abruptly quit the network yesterday and is in talks to take over programming at OWN, according to sources.

When asked yesterday about Wood, a spokesman for OWN replied “nothing is in the works” right now.

A high-level change coming just one month before OWN’s scheduled Jan. 1 launch is a sign that Oprah is not happy with the slate of new shows set to begin airing next year.

“One thing Oprah is not used to is low ratings,” says one insider.

The network — originally scheduled to launch in late 2009 and twice delayed — is already going to debut with a limited schedule.

“Oprah” reruns will not be free to appear on the channel until next September, after the daytime show ends.

The cable channel — a 50-50 joint venture with the Discovery Channel — has already burned through $75 million of its initial $100 million in financing.

Discovery — which is funding the channel — agreed to put up an additional $89 million last spring only after Oprah promised to appear on the air more often.

One important piece of the puzzle appears to be coming together, however — a big-budget, network-style morning show for OWN, now scheduled to start as soon as March, according to sources.

Mark Burnett, the reality-TV producer behind “Survivor” and “The Apprentice,” is putting the show together and is said to be close to picking three women and a man as hosts.

Burnett’s wife, “Touched by an Angel” star Roma Downey, and the wife of ex-Viacom chief Tom Freston, Kathy, a former model and self-help book author, are said to be in the running.

It is all part of the latest changes at OWN.The network’s focus is being tilted away from a mix of health, inspirational and how-to shows — pretty much the same brew that characterized Oprah’s famous daytime show — to a schedule heavy on celebrity appeal, according to people with knowledge of the network’s new plan.