The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) won’t launch in Canada until March 2011, but that’s not stopping Corus Entertainment from giving Canadians a sneak peek at its programming.

In the two-month interim between the Jan. 1, 2011 launch stateside and the March 1 bow in Canada, some new OWN programming will air on W Network and Viva.

That includes Your OWN Show: Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star, which will air on the same day here as its US broadcast starting Jan. 7. Your OWN Show follows 10 people competing to get their own show on OWN.

The sampling will end on Feb. 25, where the winner of the series will be revealed, just ahead of OWN debuting on Canadian TV.

To promote the preview, Corus is starting an ad campaign this month with eight weeks of national radio ads on all 24 of the network’s stations and relevant Corus websites, such as CMT, W Networks and CosmoTV. TV ads will run on W Network and Viva.

Corus is also launching a ‘sneak peek’ microsite on Dec. 13 that will include video, show information and background info on OWN.

Sponsorship of the OWN blocks of shows on W Network and Viva is available to advertisers that plan to advertise on the OWN station once it launches.

From Playback Daily, with files from Media in Canada