Oprah Winfrey and ABC on Friday announced plans to team up to create
two new feel-good reality shows. The two series will mark Ms.
Winfrey's first venture into regular prime-time programming and the
initial effort from the new television unit of her company, Harpo
Productions.

Ms. Winfrey is scheduled to appear in at least one of the shows,
according to executives at ABC and Harpo. In one, "Oprah
Winfrey's `The Big Give,' " participants will compete to come up with
the most creative ways to take a given amount of money and other
resources and multiply them before giving them away to help others.

The series will feature 10 contestants over eight episodes, with one
contestant being eliminated each week. The format echoes a recent
installment of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in which Ms. Winfrey gave
audience members gift cards worth $1,000, which they then had to use
for a charitable cause.

The second reality series, tentatively titled "Your Money or Your
Life," will feature "families facing a life crisis" who will be
offered help with financial and other decisions by "an expert action
team," according to a description of the show released Friday.

While the two series have not yet been scheduled, summer is the
typical tryout time for new reality shows. The agreement with ABC was
first reported Friday by Variety, the entertainment trade publication.

"Having her involved in prime-time television is a huge thing,"
Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment, said in an
interview. He declined to predict whether the two new series would
prove as popular as many of Ms. Winfrey's other television ventures,
but he acknowledged that hopes were high.

"We've had great success together with movies and other specials,"
Mr. McPherson said, adding that ABC was producing at least two
specials with Ms. Winfrey by ABC for next year.

Ms. Winfrey's syndicated daytime talk show regularly draws more than
eight million viewers, a bigger audience than that drawn by roughly
two-thirds of the shows broadcast in prime time on the four major
networks.

Ellen Rakieten, executive vice president for creative development at
Harpo Productions and one of the executives who is overseeing the new
reality shows, said the purpose of both series was "to inspire
people."

"They are an amalgamation of a thousand different `Oprah' shows we've
done," Ms. Rakieten said. "The best feeling you can have is to give
to other people. That is a general mission that we have had all
along."

That type of reality show would fit in well with ABC's other
nonscripted programming, which tilts heavily toward feel-good shows
like "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," "Wife Swap" and "Supernanny."
Those series primarily involve families trying to cope with or
improve their circumstances, rather than the cutthroat, gross-out
competitions favored by some reality producers.

"There will be no planned bug eating," Ms. Rakieten said.

In September Harpo Productions announced the formation of a new
television development group to create programming for syndication,
broadcast networks, cable channels and digital media.

In addition to Ms. Rakieten, who has worked on "The Oprah Winfrey
Show" since its inception 20 years ago, the group is overseen by
Harriet Seitler, executive vice president of marketing and
development, who joined Harpo in 1995.

Both executives and the television division are based in Chicago, but
they said it was not yet clear whether the reality series would be
produced there, in Los Angeles or elsewhere.

The extent of Ms. Winfrey's on-camera involvement is also still being
discussed, the executives said.

"She will appear in a show in places where it makes sense," Ms.
Seitler said. "We've learned that this is an incredibly fast-paced
business, so we're moving to make those decisions as quickly as we
can."

Other than appearing in prime time, the new shows are not much
different than what goes on at Harpo Productions each day, Ms.
Seitler said. "We do reality programming every day on `The Oprah
Winfrey Show.' "