Oprah Plays Kingmaker to Food Maven

Nobody does it better than Oprah.

But the daytime queen's production company is hoping to strike gold for the second time in four years with a daytime show on NBC featuring Food Network hostess Rachael Ray.

Ray's creative cooking shows 30-Minute Meals and $40 a Day, among others, have made her a cable star, complete with best-selling cookbooks, and the bane of other networks whose celebrity chefs failed to take off. Now Ray, who has appeared on Oprah several times in the past few months, is poised to get her own daytime show.

The program, described by a producer as "fun and lighthearted," will center on Ray's cooking segments but will also feature home entertainment and organization tips.

Harpo is hoping Ray's program takes off like that of Dr. Phil McGraw, a psychologist who maneuvered his "strip" (regular feature) appearances on Oprah into his own talk show two years ago. Now Oprah and Dr. Phil own the No. 1 and No. 2 slots in daytime television, leaving competitors such as Live With Regis and Kelly and The Ellen DeGeneras Show in the dust.

Rachael Ray was born into a family of restaurateurs and got her start at Macy's Marketplace in New York City. She then worked as a food buyer and hotel-restaurant manager, before getting her television slot on WRGB-TV in Albany.

In case her television deal with NBC falls through, Ray has another fall-launch project to keep up with: Her eponymous lifestyle magazine is set to hit newsstands in October.
NBC is poised to become the King of Talk this year with Martha Stewart's latest daytime show Martha, combining talk segments with the hostess' trademark projects, and The Megan Mulally Show, featuring the current Emmy-winning Will & Grace star.