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Look at the time stamp on Oprah Winfrey’s Tweet from last night: just when the Grammys were starting. As if she was going to convince any of her 9+ million Twitter followers to turn the dial away from CBS and one of the most watched awards shows ever to… Hey, does anyone even know where exactly OWN lives on the remote? Nah. Problem is, Winfrey’s ploy backfired. People started attacking her as pathetic and desperate. (“Unethical is a little harsh, don’t you think?” Oprah bleated back…) One big problem: TV types tell me that Nielsen makes its rated shows sign agreements that they won’t openly solicit Nielsen households. Especially during sweeps periods like now. So TV execs expect Nielsen not to issue a rating for last night’s OWN as a way of punishing Oprah going rogue. I think running OWN is punishment enough. It sucks.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Someone should tell Oprah it’s Nielsen, not Neilsen.
I don’t have cable (thankgod), but from what I’ve read about Own, it’s a failed venture. If she were smart, she would hire Robert Johnson from BET to be a consultant or whatever. Let him take over programming and bring in some “urban” oriented shows. There was a show on Lifetime that I absolutely loved and it pulled 500,000 viewers — House of Style — but it was cancelled because of low ratings. That would fit perfectly with Oprah’s OWN. I bet she’s getting a lot of pitches but she’s turning them down, because they’re not “intelligent” or high-class enough for her network.
Judging by what’s on TV, she should be buying shows about Bigfoot and ghosts.
And vampires, don’t forget vampires.
She is! That’s why ratings are so low! Serious, the other night it was all “Cheating” shows and other crap.
Who knew OWN would stand for “Oprah’s Worst Nightmare”?
Didn’t she say about the soaps it was a dying genre? Maybe her OWN network and herself is now feeling the burn. Oh, how the mighty come to fall. And to then beg to the hand that she cut….
Why should I give my money to Oprah, She has not done anything for me! This country is hurting and people have lost their homes! Oprah wake up! Your network should be free to all of us.
Why don’t you invest in Daytime soaps?
Such a shame..no one is watching OWN. She turned her back on 20 million viewers of daytime television when she said No, super sorry, I wont save your soaps! Well apparently she didn’t need the fans then. What comes around goes around.
well opra had this comming when she was aked to pick up our soaps she said that she could not save our soaps so how does it feel not to get the ratings now she will know how we felt when our soaps were cancelled i will not watch any thing on abc or disney
But we should worship at the altar of Oprah because Oprah donates so much money to charities bearing Oprah’s name.
We know this because Oprah tells us of Oprah’s generosity.
so true!
OWN was a silly idea.
These billionaires! Cry me a river! Do they have a clue the pain people are experiencing around the world and in Los Angeles alone? I’ve been having trouble feeding my kids lately (two big growing teenaged boys)– Los Angeles (et al) based billionaires and others of the mega wealthy have been donating some money but they forget to donate to food banks and homeless shelters in Los Angeles. She and Arnon Milchan should discuss their terrible problems on her network– a billionaires’ hardships. Now that I’d watch.
But yet you can somehow afford to connect to the Internet and post…
J, the internet is free.
…the Internet is not free.
J-the internet IS FREE at public libraries. So get off your “not poor enough for me” high horse. You may very well find yourself posting at the library one day, having some clueless git sneer at you for not suffering ENOUGH.
I hope you feel better after that post, J. Feels good to demean other people, eh?
Oprah’s hubris is staggering. Get some original scripted content and people will find your channel. Stop being so damn stubborn. Adapt some of those damn books you love marketing into series. Giving them boring reality shows is not gonna do it. If you’re not gonna do trash reality and not gonna do scripted programming, then let’s be honest, no one’s gonna watch.
A reality show starring Oprah and her network-launching travails might be a funny/interesting way to get viewers to at least sample OWN. She needs to show that she can laugh at herself!
OMG! Yes. She hasn’t a clue and is thus shrinking back to her tired, old format of celebrity interviews. Booorrr-ring! The woman is clueless because she surrounds herself with the same fawning group of producers who hash out the same old, tired ideas. None of whom understand the words fresh, different, real. How many more millions does Oprah plan to dump hiring more wrong people with more wrong ideas? I was excited about OWN many years ago. Now I don’t think you could pay me to watch.
Why doesn’t she pick up the soaps? She would gain millions of viewers! I know she says they don’t have any following, but if she would pay attention to the outrage the cancellations have caused, she would see she’s sadly mistaken! Oprah, you can’t expect us to help you if you won’t help us, sorry!
I agree opra did not help us fans of our soaps if she did she would of had a lot of viewers who would of watched but no she turned her back so now you cannot expect us to help you now soaps are not dead talk shows are
This is the first time in a long time she has failed professionally. But begging is simply silly.
it’s at least the second time. Remember “Beloved”?
Andy said first time in a long time. Beloved was like 15 years ago now, wasn’t it? But yes that was a failure for sure.
Hold it…didn’t Oprah face-plant in a JV with the Oxygen network not so many years ago?
But Icarus, exhilarated by the feeling of flight, ignored his father’s warning and flew too close to the sun. The heat from the sun melted the wax holding his wings together, and he plunged into the sea and drowned.
I love this post – it is perfect, only our Icarus will land on a boat made of money and float back home, just badly sunburned.
It is delicious seeing Oprah wondering where her “fans” are. The answer? They don’t have the money for cable and only watched her because she was syndicated on the networks.
OWN has been a mess from the beginning. The network should have started around when Oprah ended her show or thereafter. Her lack of presence on the network during the first several months and lack of a sizable amount of programming hamstrung it bad.
She may have to bring back her daily show to staunch the bleeding but it may be too late for that.
Definitely not too late. Problem is how to. And she’s too proud to come back anyway.
I do not watch OWN, the reason being it is not a part of my extended cable package and I am unwilling to pay any more than I already am to watch TV. I also no longer receive the Hallmark Channel (goodbye Martha Stewart), WE or Soapnet as part of my cable package. I have to believe this is one of the reasons her ratings are so dismal. Her core audience is solidly middle class and is not about to take on any new frivolous expenses like additional TV stations when they’ve already stopped drinking Frappucinos every morning and are brown bagging their lunches.
All the greats fail at times. It seems like she’s going to have a hard time admitting it. This is going to get ugly.
Shame on you Oprah! People have real lives going on with real struggles – so yes they want to be really entertained. Everyone is done with your preaching. So I guess The Secret just bombed on this front? Listen to W.B, donate half your $$$ – it’s OK, you should still have a billion left, and take your expensive cable toy (which by the way someone ELSE is paying for) and go home.
Oh how embarrassing. It’s a shame that OWN is such a joke. I have watched several programs on OWN and must say they are all smart, well-crafted and well-produced. What they are not is well-marketed. No one can be blamed for this but Oprah, of course. But it is a shame because much of the programming is thoughtful and intelligent and interesting. In other words it is never going to draw the attention of a mass-market where shows with far less to offer draw the most interest of the ever-shrinking viewer public. She should have started OWN five years ago and moved her show there to draw the audience to her. Instead she ended her show, made herself somewhat irrelevant, then tried to build a network without it’s only star. Not very smart…and hence quite surprising for a woman who turned self-promotion into an industry unto itself. Still, Oprah will prevail, somehow. Not so sure about OWN, though…
Oprah is just a bloated video despot who is is starting to smell bad from the lack of attention. She can waddle around her OWN studios and pretend that she didn’t f**k it all up with her terrible choices as ruler supreme… But that gets expensive. Why on earth does she want public sympathy for her boundless greed anyway? Just count your coins and go away.
Everybody’s life is fine, and nobody misses Oprah or Regis or Larry King or Jerry Lewis. Can’t wait for Barbara Walters and Dick Clark to join them off the air.
Amen!
Truth be told, she should have never made the move to cable TV. Many of her viewers such as myself only have broadcast television and so I can never watch OWN.
From the time I spent there, this is noooooooo surprise. What a train wreck.
Just because you have a brand and a name, does not mean you need your own TV channel. There are so many choices out there, whats mass tv anymore? Everything gets so splintered to all these cable channels, including OWN. Hope they are happy with their 0.0 HH/demo ratings. Many of these channels barely even have enough people watching that they show up as zeroes!
If only Martha had learned this as well. Her Mark Burnett-produced show on NBC was entertaining and informative. (Even if you LOATHE Stewart, the food she produced on that program was elegant and tasty.)
Then she got greedy and moved waaay up the dial to Hallmark for a bigger slice of the profits and no one has followed her there.
Clearly the real estate rule about “location, location, location” applies to syndicated shows by moguls as well.
So agree! Once TMSS moved I lost interest. I really enjoyed it too. And maybe you read the NY magazine piece that detailed how Stewart’s greed, ego and stubbornness was the cause of her previous downfall (and jail time)? You’d think she’d pick up some self-awareness during her time in prison, don’t you? But nooooo. You’d also think Oprah would learn something from simply observing. But nooooo. Oddly, she seems to also lack genuine self-awareness.
I saw the Tweets and honestly assumed she had been hacked. Sad if it was really her tweeting that!
Oprah, you ditched Lisa Erspamer and not the talentless, back stabbing parasite, Karin Silverstein?!?
It’s simple.
She knew that African Americans would be especially riveted by the Grammys because of Whitney Houston’s untimely death.
She timed her Tweet – and she did it herself apparently (if not even worse)in an attempt to massage them to OWN as a subliminal solidarity thing.
Co-opting the big numbers from the Grammys to her channel was the idea – converting frequent flier miles by trading in the death of Whitney. Ironic considering (how true this is I don’t know) that Whitney was allegedly bitter about her exclusive interview with Winfrey when she released her last album.
If only Winfrey had given Whitney the TOM CRUISE/WILL SMITH/BARACK OBAMA VELVET GLOVES TREATMENT!
The move reeks of Scientology “tech.”
To quote Winfrey about herself : some “messenger.”
Had Oprah listened to the pleas of her fans, who are by-in-large also fans of the daytime soap genre, and had rescued the afternoon soaps that ABC so callously discarded over the last few months, she would have seen a marked increase in the popularity of OWN and would not have to beg for viewers. No sympathy. Sorry.
Right on the money, Julie: Oprah missed the mark by not rescuing the Soaps. That would have been her best launching pad!
I completely agree. She’d be upgrading to HD cameras and an HD channel by now.
Oprah does what Oprah wishes. May she have mercy on all of us. Woe to those who fail to seek her approval for they may be without panini makers.
Oprah turned her back on the daytime audience that made her when she condescendingly said no in a youtube video to helping with AMC and OLTL. The “bone-marrow truth” Oprah, is no one is watching your network. Begging for viewers via Twitter is truly desperate. AMC and OLTL’s 5 million plus viewers would have followed you to OWN.
Shame on you Oprah! Maybe you should of thought about the AMC AND OLTL viewer all 5 million of them you would have to beg people to watch you network. We daytime fans are loyal and we would of supported you if you would have supported the daytime fans. What goes around comes around.
Oprah turned her back on the soap fans because she couldn’t save a dying genre. Now we can’t help save her dying OWN. Oh well, Oprah, at least you’ll have your billions to keep you warm when your station goes belly-up while out-of-work soap actors, writers, directors, crew, make-up artist, et al have their bi-weekly unemployment checks, right?
Wow, this reeks of desperation Oprah. When you made your video to the soap fans and stated that no one is watching the soaps anymore you turned off the fans. Who was your lead in for all those years? SOAPS. OLTL’s finale drew 3.8 million viewers, so much for no one watching. Even SOAPnet that only replays episodes has higher ratings than OWN. Soapers take care of their supporters and refuse to watch those that treat us as badly as you have.
so agree couldn’t have said it better myself…..poor own
thats been on a short time(not) poor oltl&amc……
Could have been worse: “You know who loved to watch OWN… Whitney Houston!”
The OWN Network is very stale and is no competition for the hundreds of other channels available. Ms. Winfrey had the opportunity to take on the two cancelled ABC soap operas – All My Children and One Life To Live – and she refused. If she had done that, she would have had a built-in audience of hundreds of thousands of viewers. Too late to “beg” for new viewers.