! Just scooped through the gossvine from a very reliable mole ... Oprah was in South Africa recently to host a reader's workshop for O magazine and apparently she spent time in top secret wheelings and dealings with DStv about the Oprah Winfrey Network: her channel that she's launching in 2011.
Late last month she announced that she'll be retiring her daily talker at the end of the September 2011 season - when it reaches 25 years on air - to focus on the network exclusively.
OWN's going to be a 24-hour channel and is being created as a joint venture between Oprah and Discovery Communications, who make Discovery Channel.
Discovery will be phasing out the Discovery Health Channel (which we don't see natch) and OWN will replace it, with Oprah as the editorial head honcho.
Some shows already announced for it include a series hosted by Oprah's signature gal pal journalist Lisa Ling, as well as a show by Ashton Kutcher called Extreme Adventures in which celebs and their BFF's tackle an adventure they've always wanted to brave.
The channel will be launching worldwide in January 2011 and if rumourville's anything to go by we'll get to see it as it happens, hopefully at the exact same time as everyone else.
While all this is happening
Oprah will continue to run on SABC3, until the end of the 25th season.