Oprah marches forward, but Harpo will stay put

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: Phil Rosenthal : Tribune Media : December 8, 2009 : : For all the changes that Oprah Winfrey set in motion with her announcement last month that she will be ending her syndicated daytime talk show in 21 months, at least one thing looks to remain the same: Her Harpo Productions is going to remain right here in Chicago. : "We're not going anywhere," Sheri Salata said Monday as she and Erik Logan were publicly promoted to the presidency of Harpo Productions alongside longtime Winfrey consigliere Tim Bennett, 60, whose plan to retire as president of Harpo Inc. at the end of May was also announced. : "For more than two decades, you have this relationship with Chicago -- Chicago being our hometown city -- so that is our charge here, to keep this Chicago studio strong," Salata said. "Without the 'Oprah' show, there definitely are some challenges to that. But at the same time, without the 'Oprah' show, the whole world has opened up in terms of the ability to take the time to do other things as well." : Salata, 50, a veteran of more than 14 years with Harpo who will continue to serve as executive producer of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" through its September 2011 conclusion, and Logan, 38, a former radio executive who has been executive vice president at Harpo since mid-2008, actually have been in their new posts for more than two weeks. : Harpo, however, perhaps did not want the news to get buried in the avalanche of coverage accorded Winfrey's decision to end her top-rated, Chicago-based syndicated daytime talk show. There also was the announcement of a January 2011 launch for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a Los Angeles-based cable television channel from Harpo Inc. and Discovery Communications. : Instead, word came this week as Harpo Productions was putting the final post-production touches on "Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special," which is scheduled to air Sunday night on ABC. : Whatever business interests grow out West with OWN, Winfrey herself made a point to note in Monday's announcement that Harpo "is a world-class production company in Chicago and will continue on after 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' " ends. A spokeswoman said Harpo Inc. will remain based in Chicago, as well. : Salata and Logan are responsible for leading Harpo Productions' efforts to develop and produce new and continuing programming beyond "The Oprah Winfrey Show" for syndication, prime time, cable, digital, radio and emerging platforms. Chicago-based Harpo Radio produces a channel for the Sirius XM Radio pay service, but there may be other ways to monetize that content. : As is, Harpo, which employs more than 400 people, has had a hand in producing or at least developing four of the top shows in syndication. Besides "The Oprah Winfrey Show," there are Phil McGraw's "Dr. Phil," " Rachael Ray" and Mehmet Oz's "The Dr. Oz Show." : "Under Sheri and Erik's leadership, I am confident in Harpo's future and know that we will continue to create quality programming with compelling content for all platforms," Winfrey said in a statement. "Not even the sky is the limit for this company." : If that indeed is the trajectory, it's a course Winfrey charted and Bennett has managed to keep on track. The two first worked together dating back to her earliest "A.M. Chicago" days at Chicago WLS-Ch. 7, and he has been with Harpo since 1994. : "Through this explosion of media and all these new opportunities that Harpo as a company has gone into, he's been the steady hand who (could always be relied upon) to objectively look at stuff and really be a great compass," Logan said. : "I can't think of anybody for all these years that Oprah could have trusted or counted on more to be by her side," said Salata, who grew up north in Waukegan. "His sense of values are so aligned with her. Tim set the tone, taking who Oprah is from a heart and a spirit point of view, and he made that part of business here. That is no small thing, for that number of years, through all the changes and the pressure and the amount of work that's gone on in this building." : And, in that complex on Chicago's West Side, the work will continue. : "Do we know today exactly how it's going to look in 2011, 2012? Of course not," Logan said. "But we have a sense of the kind of studio that we're building in Chicago and maximizing the platform we have. ... We create great content that has a purpose, so you should expect that we continue to do that."

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