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Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle - Megan McArdle is a senior editor for The Atlantic who writes about business and economics. She has worked at three start-ups, a consulting firm, an investment bank, a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero, and The Economist. More

Megan was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and yes, she does enjoy her lattes, as well as the occasional extra-dry skim-milk cappuccino. Her checkered work history includes three start-ups, four years as a technology project manager for a boutique consulting firm, a summer as an associate at an investment bank, and a year spent as sort of an executive copy girl for one of the disaster-recovery firms at Ground Zero … all before the age of 30.

While working at Ground Zero, Megan started Live From the WTC, a blog focused on economics, business, and cooking. She may or may not have been the first major economics blogger, depending on whether we are allowed to throw outlying variables such as Brad Delong out of the set. From there it was but a few steps down the slippery slope to freelance journalism. She has worked in various capacities for The Economist, where she wrote about economics and oversaw the founding of Free Exchange, the magazine's economics blog. She has also maintained her own blog, Asymmetrical Information, which moved to The Atlantic, along with its owner, in August 2007.

Megan holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. After a lifetime as a New Yorker, she now resides in northwest Washington, D.C., where she is still trying to figure out what one does with an apartment larger than 400 square feet.

Oprah Winfrey Ending the Most Successful Television Show Ever

By Megan McArdle
Nov 20 2009, 2:13 PM ET Comment

Oprah Winfrey has announced that she is ending her show after its 25th season.  You can see why she's doing it:  one of the wealthiest people in America, with $2.6 billion to her name, Ms. Winfrey hardly needs to keep showing up for a job that must be getting a little repetitive by now.  Moreover, she still has a massive media empire with properties like O Magazine to keep the money rolling in.  And with the termination of her show, she'll be launching her very own cable network, OWN.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether her empire will remain intact after she leaves broadcast television..  For all the complaints about the declining viewership of the Big Four, they have many times the audience of the Discovery Channel, which is helping Ms. Winfrey launch her new property.  Memories are short in the media business. Will women continue to buy her magazine if they aren't spending their weekday afternoons watching her show?


Of course, it remains to be seen whether her empire will remain intact after she leaves broadcast television.  For all the complaints about the declining viewership of the Big Four, they have many times the audience of the Discovery Channel, which is helping Ms. Winfrey launch her new property.  Memories are short in the media business. Will women continue to buy her magazine if they aren't spending their weekday afternoons watching her show?
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