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OPRAH Network (OWN) - shocking ratings - fewer viewers than Discovery
Fledgling Oprah network struggling
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 02:53 AM
By Brian Stelter
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Building an out-of-the-way TV network into a destination, Oprah Winfrey is finding, isn't easy.
OWN, her 2-month-old network, is attracting fewer viewers than the obscure network it replaced: Discovery Health.
At any time during February, about 135,000 people were watching OWN, according to the Nielsen Co., and only about 45,000 of them were women ages 25 to 54 - the network's key demographic.
The ratings - down about 10 percent from Discovery Health's last year - are being watched by people who want to rebuild cable networks around other celebrities and by investors who worry that OWN is a drag on the Discovery stock.
Winfrey and her partner, Discovery Communications, have preached patience - especially because she won't have any presence on the network until after The Oprah Winfrey Show ends its long run in September.
Until then, OWN is nurturing shows such as Our America, a series of documentaries hosted by Lisa Ling that was the first show to be renewed by the network.
The early lesson of OWN, according to CEO Christina Norman, is that Oprah fans expect a lot of original programming.
"We opened the store, and they cleaned us out, so now we have to restock the shelves much faster than we thought we did," she said.
More recently, she emphasized that new episodes of OWN's 12 series are generally doing better than the Discovery Health programs that they replaced. But the channel is down overall because people aren't sticking around for repeats.
Her goal this year, she said, is still to double the ratings and accumulate at least 50 million viewers each month.
Three weeks after the network made its debut on Jan. 1, Norman decided to move some of the new shows that were scheduled for March to February, such as Searching for . . . and Breaking Down the Bars. OWN has two more shows starting this month: Home Takeover (March 28) and Addicted to Food (March 29).
But the network needs more.
Discovery is investing another $50 million into OWN, on top of the $189 million that it committed before the network came into being.
Norman's plan for OWN called for 600 hours of new programs and 600 hours of acquired programs, but any full-time network has almost 9,000 hours to fill a year. For a new network striving for viewers, repeats are particularly uninviting.
"What everyone told me about the cable business is ... you start with a couple of shows - people are used to repeats," Winfrey recently told The Hollywood Reporter. "Oprah viewers were not!"
OWN executives say the network can be judged more fairly in the fall - when it adds a daytime talk show hosted by Rosie O'Donnell and episodes from the 25-year library of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Later, Winfrey is expected to have a new show two to three nights a week.
One of OWN's other big challenges, Norman said, is marketing. Notably, a few weeks after OWN replaced Discovery Health, Discovery decided to re-create the old network by renaming FitTV as Discovery Fit & Health.
What OWN uniquely has, of course, is Winfrey. The final months of her show are drawing more than 7 million viewers a day - some of her biggest ratings in many years. And she's priming that audience to move over to OWN.
On Feb. 22, she devoted half of her talk show to Our America, which premiered a week earlier.
What did Our America get? About 733,000 total viewers, up 24percent from the previous week. That was enough for OWN to order six more episodes. The episodes, however, won't be ready until October.
Fledgling Oprah network struggling
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 02:53 AM
By Brian Stelter
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Building an out-of-the-way TV network into a destination, Oprah Winfrey is finding, isn't easy.
OWN, her 2-month-old network, is attracting fewer viewers than the obscure network it replaced: Discovery Health.
At any time during February, about 135,000 people were watching OWN, according to the Nielsen Co., and only about 45,000 of them were women ages 25 to 54 - the network's key demographic.
The ratings - down about 10 percent from Discovery Health's last year - are being watched by people who want to rebuild cable networks around other celebrities and by investors who worry that OWN is a drag on the Discovery stock.
Winfrey and her partner, Discovery Communications, have preached patience - especially because she won't have any presence on the network until after The Oprah Winfrey Show ends its long run in September.
Until then, OWN is nurturing shows such as Our America, a series of documentaries hosted by Lisa Ling that was the first show to be renewed by the network.
The early lesson of OWN, according to CEO Christina Norman, is that Oprah fans expect a lot of original programming.
"We opened the store, and they cleaned us out, so now we have to restock the shelves much faster than we thought we did," she said.
More recently, she emphasized that new episodes of OWN's 12 series are generally doing better than the Discovery Health programs that they replaced. But the channel is down overall because people aren't sticking around for repeats.
Her goal this year, she said, is still to double the ratings and accumulate at least 50 million viewers each month.
Three weeks after the network made its debut on Jan. 1, Norman decided to move some of the new shows that were scheduled for March to February, such as Searching for . . . and Breaking Down the Bars. OWN has two more shows starting this month: Home Takeover (March 28) and Addicted to Food (March 29).
But the network needs more.
Discovery is investing another $50 million into OWN, on top of the $189 million that it committed before the network came into being.
Norman's plan for OWN called for 600 hours of new programs and 600 hours of acquired programs, but any full-time network has almost 9,000 hours to fill a year. For a new network striving for viewers, repeats are particularly uninviting.
"What everyone told me about the cable business is ... you start with a couple of shows - people are used to repeats," Winfrey recently told The Hollywood Reporter. "Oprah viewers were not!"
OWN executives say the network can be judged more fairly in the fall - when it adds a daytime talk show hosted by Rosie O'Donnell and episodes from the 25-year library of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Later, Winfrey is expected to have a new show two to three nights a week.
One of OWN's other big challenges, Norman said, is marketing. Notably, a few weeks after OWN replaced Discovery Health, Discovery decided to re-create the old network by renaming FitTV as Discovery Fit & Health.
What OWN uniquely has, of course, is Winfrey. The final months of her show are drawing more than 7 million viewers a day - some of her biggest ratings in many years. And she's priming that audience to move over to OWN.
On Feb. 22, she devoted half of her talk show to Our America, which premiered a week earlier.
What did Our America get? About 733,000 total viewers, up 24percent from the previous week. That was enough for OWN to order six more episodes. The episodes, however, won't be ready until October.
