RATINGS RAT RACE: Final Season Premiere Of ‘Oprah Winfrey Show’ Slightly Up

COMMENTS (7)

• What’s the town’s take on OWN and its prospects?

  Comment by Dustintime — Wednesday September 15, 2010 @ 7:53am PDT  Reply to this post

• the self-promotion for this last year is downright embarassing. a lighter touch would be appreciated.

  Comment by kate — Wednesday September 15, 2010 @ 1:01pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I am no expert but Oprah sank to lows because in the last 5 years her show only produced 130 a year. Some of those being topical to the day. For instance “The Day after the historical Presidential Election” or “The morning after the Academy Awards”. Those show are hard to repeat. So what happens is some of “Oprah” episodes in the summer are on there 3rd run. How many times did she run the “Whitney Houston” shows? Once was enough. don’t care to see that episode again.

  The typical day time talk show does 200 shows a year. So they only have to repeat 50 of those shows. Once “Ellen” becomes the new queen of daytime her Summer ratings will be sinking to record lows because most of her shows have guest that are plugging their newest movie cd, or Tv-show. When those shows or movies bomb those episodes are hard to repeat. “Oparh” has this problem now. For instance If J-Lo did an Oprah episode with promoting “THE BACK UP PLAN” it would be insulting to J-Lo if Oprah repeated it because the film bomb. She does want J-Lo back so repeating that episode in which her movie tanked would be insulting. So there is another episode that you can not repeat.

  Now add up all the holiday theme shows, these shows can not be repeated easily. This gives “Oprah” about 115 shows that can repeat. However there is 52 weeks a year so that is 260 days to spread out 130 episodes. 130 days are repeats and Oprah can only has 100-to 115 of her shows that can be repeated. Which means there is anywhere from 20-30 days a year where Oprah airs an episode for the 3rd time.

  If “ellen” was smart she would also do Summer shows with a guest host. With all the choices viewers have repeats are no longer cost effective.

  Comment by stan — Wednesday September 15, 2010 @ 2:16pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I think that that’s a good start for the final season. Many long running shows have audience erosion, people moving on to other shows after watching Oprah for 20 years or more. But it shows that she still pulls in viewers even in season 25!

  Comment by PN — Monday September 20, 2010 @ 11:13am PDT  Reply to this post

• The Nate Burkus Show simply isn’t compelling television. He makes a much better guest than he does a host. As the design makeover stuff grows less interesting with each minute, they fill the show with cooking, celebrity gossip and life self improvement segments, all of which are handled much better by other daytime hosts. This show is a dud and should be axed by the end of the season.

  Comment by Rod — Thursday September 23, 2010 @ 1:38pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Lets get this strait. People forget that the Oprah season premeire was all but COMPLETELY preempted by the US Open Finals tennis match which was scheduled to air the Sunday before but was rescheduled for the Monday of the Oprah Show debut. In most states in the country these shows were scheduled at the exact same time and on the exact same channel. Because of the hugeness of the US Open, Oprah was moved to local programming stations in each state.
  It’s so funny that people fabricate these misleading stories by failing to disclose all facts or fail to research them. The fact that Oprah increased her viewership at all against one of the largest sporting events of the year and in the world shows that she is a ratings force to be recckoned with.

  Comment by G — Thursday October 21, 2010 @ 1:12pm PDT  Reply to this post

• So much hype about how this season will be amazing. Well, I am sure amazed that its all repeats. Literally most of the episodes are indeed. What’s up with that. How lame – what a let down.

  Comment by brad — Thursday January 6, 2011 @ 1:23pm PST  Reply to this post