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It was a case of good news-bad news for Oprah Winfrey today when the ratings for the heavily hyped Monday edition of her syndicated show as well as last week’s ratings for her cable network OWN came in. The Monday episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, in which Oprah revealed that she has a half-sister, drew a 9.7 household rating/22 share in the metered markets, the show’s highest numbers in 6 years, since the after-Oscars broadcast on Feb. 28, 2005, which posted a 10.8/23.
Meanwhile, according to the basic cable ratings for last week released today, OWN’s ratings continued to slide in its third full week on the air. For the week of Jan. 17, OWN averaged 297,000 viewers in primetime, down 4% from the previous week. (The network launched on Jan. 1, with an average of 1.1 viewers in primetime for its debut weekend, then averaged 387,000 in its first full week.) OWN continues to trail all of its female-oriented cable competition, including Lifetime (817,000), Oxygen (547,000) and WE (322,000). The highest-rated OWN program was special Ask Oprah’s All Stars (539,000). Meanwhile, the daily talk show of Oprah’s best friend Gayle King, which airs daily in the morning, was once again at the bottom of the ratings, drawing between 105,000-148,000 from Monday-Friday, down from the week before. Despite the minuscule ratings, the show, a TV version of King’s daily radio show, is not necessarily in danger. During her session at TCA, Oprah said that on some shows, “even if (viewers) don’t respond, I will keep them. Because I can.”
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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“…because I can.”
Maybe she can, but you have to wonder for how long. Granted, this is marathon, not a sprint (as Oprah said herself), yet even Oprah can’t carry failing shows forever, whether they star her best friend or not. Lest we forget, Gayle’s syndicated entry into TV flopped more than a decade ago. On the other hand, cable provides a dedicated stream of subscription revenue, whether people are tuning in or not. Oprah’s worst nightmare has to be the adoption of an a la carte pricing system, where people don’t take the channels they don’t watch.
Always remember… Oprah doesn’t do stairs!!!
oprah will and can carry gayle –
but i think gayle is ill-served by not being in her best context – she is a people person, she’s communal -
just like keith olbermann was at his best with a partner in dan patrick on the iconic ESPN Sportscenter circa 1995 that inspired Aaron Sorkin…gayle is not at her best alone either – but where keith was better one on one with dan, gayle needs at LEAST 2 others on the show with her – and a guest – and 1 topic per show – not this grazing thing – if you’re going to put radio on the air, it should be as imus did it on msnbc
Unfortunately, most of the shows on OWN are half-baked, really tired or about as interesting as watching paint dry. The quality just isn’t there. It just feels like she spread herself too thin.
Winfrey remains an incredible spotlight whore – a half sister? does that mean she has only 50% of Winfrey’s universe sized ego? Winfrey has a half-sister. Wow! that’s never happened before in the annals of human history. Doesn’t that bore you Madame Andreeva? Te di um magnus. . ..
Next year, Zaslav is gonna force her to open up her programming away from this boring stuff. She doesn’t have to do the Jersey Shore, but something entertaining would be nice.
I wonder what’s more embarrassing, canceling a show that only exists because the host is your friend and you threw her a bone, or keeping it despite horrible ratings just to save face and having to grin and bear it even though everyone knows it’s tanked? Guess we’ll find out.
To be fair OWN isn’t far behind WE which is pretty good considering it only launched Jan 1st (and the audience declines have slowed down now)
I watch Season 25 and Masterclass but find much of the rest of the line-up quite bland. The OWN development team seem to go for the most obvious, dullest shows time after time. The net has no bite.
“I will keep them because I can.”
I call bullshit on this. You can, huh? How much am I personally subsidizing her little network via my monthly DirecTV subscription (which just went up this month, again).
I detest this woman.
Own ratings keep sliding because the network is boring.It’s one 24 hour long Oprah shows, filled with Oprah’s friends and favorite things.If she wants to keep up with the other female networks, she needs to jazz it up a bit.She might hate the raunch and drama, but people tune in for it.Oxygen’s has the skankfest Bad Girls Club and the crazy ladies show Snapped, Lifetime has the drama filled Project Runway, Army Wives and Drop Dead Diva, and WE tv has a barrage of angry bride shows.What does OWN have, Gayle king and a cooking show.Time for Oprah to see the light, and by light I mean a primetime Lindsay Lohan reality show about lindsay getting her life in order, but failing.Imagine the primetime ratings for OWN when lindsay goes on a drunken bender and muff dives show coke up whore in a seedy public bathroom.
Can’t have it all, Oprah!
I wonder if OWN and Oprah will hire diversity writers, put on diversity pilots, or will OWN be just another network that panders to the business-as-usual crowd. To Ms. Winfrey and her network, please see outside the box and know there are talented voices out there that need you and your network to hear them, to get behind them, and give them a platform.
Our cable system doesn’t carry it in my part of Texas. You will also see a huge bump when Oprah is not on everyday anymore. Why go to her network when she is still in the same spot at 4pm and has been since I was a freshman in college.
The programming on this network is BRUTAL. Christina Ferrera cooking? Are you kidding me? That show exisits only because Julia Child is DEAD. Gayle King doing a radio show on TV for two hours? Ouch! Sarah Ferguson and the Judds? The execs who picked these shows need to be shown the door. The need real programmers. What is Lisa Erspamer going to say at Real Screens…”Oops? I need a do over, not my fault!” Christine needs to go she is lame and she was at the helm while this circus started
They WERE shown the door…
So is ‘because I can’ the new ‘yes we can’? There is vanity publishing so why not vanity network ownership, ‘vanity’ being the operative word if theyre not buying what youre selling. Funny – with Oprah starting up the big book club movement i thought she would go into tv production of some of those books or create some scripted tv programming – not a batch of boring talk and self help shows.
I was ready to give OWN a chance..but its lineup is pretty bland..to really compete with the other female oriented cable channels (Oxygen..WETV..Lifetime)..it needs either some really good scripted content..or some trashy reality shows..
Has anyone seen the Gayle King Show? Gayle has a great personality when she is playing against Oprah. Gayle is down-to-earth. She seems to be the kind of person who would listen, compared to Oprah who makes everything about herself. Oprah is the Ying to Gayle’s Yang.
Gayle’s show is simply a radio show done in a TV studio with cameras. It is incredibly boring. It has no life, no passion to it. If you’re going to do radio on TV, it would at least look more interesting if they had her in her radio studio and taped it. But a show done in a TV studio with no audience just falls flat.
Oprah knows best, but I think OWN should launch an original movie franchise to grab ratings.
Perhaps if the network hired some imaginative producers, talented writers and began producing quality scripted programming things would change. Her brand isn’t synonymous with crappy reality programs.
What’s the saying: nobody likes a holiday every day? It’s the same with Oprah and her ‘brand’ (bland?). Yeah – the O-Heads will eat, read, watch and spew whatever their told by their High Priestess, but most of us only like O. (and all her O-Ness) in limited doses.
I’ll never understand why people have such a visceral hatred of a woman who gives over 50% of her enormous wealth to charity. She got her OWN network. Did anyone hate Ted Turner when he got his? Whether it succeeds or fails, for a woman with her dirt-poor background, her achievments are incredible. I’d LOVE to have .001 % of her success and don’t begrudge congratulating her for all she’s accomplished.
Thank you for saying something nice. I don’t know what is wrong with all these nasty people. What happened to “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything”. It is no wonder this country is in the shape that it is in.
We are giving honest feedback not being nasty. That is the whole point of making these comments. If OWN was putting out great programs I would be applauding Oprah. Instead she plays it safe and disappoints us!
OWN = Boring Boring Boring
Very well said. Oprah’s network is a big yawn. That’s opinion, not being nasty.
Me and my family are up set that Oprah consider her sister half because in the black community we are raised up to consider your sibling as your whole if You have the same mother no matter what
Did anyone else but me think it ironic, that on the recent “Oprah-Behind the Scenes” show about filming Oprah’s interview with Michael Jackson’s mother, Oprah and “her own multitudes of people” continually remarked about how many random Jackson family/people who had nothing to do with this “remarkable earth-shattering interview” were roaming the “Jackson compound”…then Oprah pulls up in a car with GAYLE! What exactly was Gayle King’s critical role in this interview? I guess Gayle was needed for something undisclosed to us viewers?!? The biggest news of the show to me was not that Oprah and the Jacksons have many paid hangers-on, it was that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson no longer live together…and Mr. Jackson is doing a Japanese reality show. This network is unreal!
I have XM radio and listen to Gayle, but her show DOES NOT translate to TV. There is no visual content, and she is not Imus or Stern.
The only interesting thing about her is that she is Oprah’s BFF. She should quit both shows, travel with Oprah and enjoy life rather than be an embarrassment, pulling down OWN’s dismal ratings.
My sister was saying the same thing on yesterday.I can only take Gayle for a hot second ,to me she alway want to be seen and like to drop names.
Oprah has established her platform and her vast connections to everything in mass media. I would like to see her use this for something other than therapy for everyone, especially herself. Socially conscious film, riveting documentaries, and pieces with an expose’ tone would seem a more genuine trasformative intent. Forget sophmoric reality nonsense and star-struck dilatantism.
I am appalled at the negativity here. Every program on OWN may not be the most entertaining but anything is better than the crap people are filling their heads with now, i.e Housewives, Jersey Shore, Bad Girls Club….are you serious people!!?? That is entertainment to you? When are you going to wake up and realize that watching trashy, train wreck television does nothing for you. I applaud Oprah for at least not caving in and doing this disgusting sensationalist television to increase ratings.