Five Celebrities Who Should Get Their "OWN" Networks

Oprah's okay, but these are the celebrity networks we'd actually watch.

By Libby Rumelt

Roca-TV

Why We'd Watch It: Jay-Z already helms an entertainment empire, including a record label, a fashion line, and partial ownership of the Nets. He even has his own social network, Roc4Life. Fifteen years after Reasonable Doubt, he's yet to run out of cultural phenomenons to share with us — mash-ups, Kanye, fast-moving hair — and no one pairs business savvy with creative integrity like Hova does. Having a television network is the next logical step, a place where all media can come together and Jay can do what he does best: dominate.

People He'd Give Shows To: Yeezy, Beyonce, Willow Smith, Chris Martin

SANE (Sanity and News Entertainment)

Why We'd Watch It: Never did traveling through the Holland Tunnel sound more appealing than when Jon Stewart used it as an analogy for the unity of our nation. If Stewart can make slogging through New Jersey traffic sound meaningful, who's to say what he could accomplish with the platform of an entire network? Well, he could keep pushing the liberal-but-critically-minded outlook that inspired at least 200,000 people to attend his Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. He could up his credibility even more by giving shows to non-satirical liberal news favorites, to create a network even the most cynical, attention-deficient generation (and their hippie parents) would enjoy.

People He'd Give Shows To: Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow, Arianna Huffington, Keith Olbermann

The Tina Fey Channel

Why We'd Watch It: Tina Fey is a badass. Not only did her ability to do a dead-on impersonation stop an early apocalypse, she was also the first female head writer for SNL and the first female news anchor for "Weekend Update." And let's be real: who hasn't spent a day lying in bed watching 30 Rock, wishing it would never end? What are you going to do when you're done watching all five seasons on Netflix Instant? Turn on the Tina Fey Channel!

People She'd Give Shows To: Amy Poehler, Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan, Rachel Dratch

Apatown

Why We'd Watch It: It's true that Judd Apatow hasn't had the most successful TV career (see: The Ben Stiller Show, Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared), but with his own network all that could change. Apatow projects thrive on ensemble chemistry, so his network could be one of the more cohesive ones out there. His humor, no matter how crass, tends to transcend all audience demographics. It's not every director who can get both a twenty-something college girl and her sixty-something father to laugh at a joke about "rearing children." Given the chance, we see Apatow's network as the next Comedy Central.

People He'd Give Shows To: Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill

The James Franco Project

Why We'd Watch It: Between the upcoming Oscars, General Hospital, his ongoing homoerotic art shows and fiction writing, do we really have a choice? Oh, we're just being difficult. We love James Franco. Everyone loves James Franco. How can an actor attempting to obtain seven different degrees from seven different schools not fascinate you? The almost-so-weird-it's-creepy direction Franco has decided to go in (rather than, say, making more comic-book flicks) is definitely something worth keeping tabs on. If people can't stop reading and writing about him, why wouldn't they want to watch him 24/7? Uh, they would. We do.

People He'd Give Shows To: Any fellow grad student/performance artist/homeless guy lucky enough to make his acquaintance.