by Patricia Sellers
Will Oprah Winfrey's OWN be a top 10 cable network?
"Technically, I don't think in terms of being in the top 10," Oprah told me in September, before the 1/1/11 launch of her new cable network. "But do I think we will be? Yes."
Fortune's recent cover story, "Oprah's Next Act," detailed her big hopes and just-as-big fears about her new venture. Now it appears that OWN's road to the top 10 will be longer than she anticipated.
Today's New York Times notes OWN's slow start: Its overall ratings have been below those of Discovery Health, whose prime cable real estate (access to 75 million homes) OWN replaced.
The folks at OWN, which is a 50-50 partnership between Oprah and Discovery Communications (DISCA), realize that they underestimated viewer demand for original programming.
The gist of OWN's ratings problem: Even with 11 original programs on air, OWN has too many hours of repeats. If you think of OWN as a store that had a grand opening in January, with customers storming the aisles, now it has too few customers returning. Reason is, there's not enough fresh product on the shelves.
So, what are the OWN execs doing to fix this problem? They've announced 12 more new programs to premiere this year. Watch for OWN to shift marketing money behind the most promising, such as shows starring The Judds, beginning in April, and Rosie O'Donnell, in September.
OWN also plans to air more programming from the Discovery library. Remember What Not to Wear and Say Yes to the Dress? Maybe you do. Well, you'll see them on OWN.
One thing that's helped Our America, a documentary series starring Lisa Ling, is aggressive promotion on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where ratings are strong in its final season. OWN's research shows that fewer than half the viewers of Oprah's daytime show on broadcast TV have sampled OWN. So she would be wise to flog OWN more on that platform.
The biggest challenge will come when Oprah and her broadcast show leave the air this September--and her destiny then lies with OWN. Horizon Media SVP of research Brad Adgate predicts that in order to bolster OWN's rating to advertisers' expectations, Oprah may have to up her OWN on-air presence beyond the 70 hours annually that she has committed to. "She might have to do 100 hours instead of 70," suggests Adgate.
Um, don't count on it. When I interviewed Oprah in September, she agonized about giving OWN 70 hours. "That's my all-in commitment," she told me.
Meanwhile, CEO David Zaslav at Discovery, which has committed $239 million to start and build OWN, says that OWN will be profitable in its first year. This is due to brisk ad sales, including big deals with Procter & Gamble (PG) and General Motors (GM), and improved cable subscription fees. OWN's monthly "sub fees," around 20 cents per cable subscriber, are more than twice Discovery Health's rates.
"Adding Oprah to the mix is a win," says Bill Gorman, co-founder of TV by the Numbers. "Anyone suggesting that OWN might not make it is nuts."
by Patricia Sellers
Did you hear that Lady Gaga was the magazine world's No. 1 hit-maker in 2010? So says the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which found that the provocative performer sold more magazine covers last year than any other celebrity.
That got me thinking...Lady Gaga shares a trait with two other powerful women who are making news this week: Oprah Winfrey and Cathie Black, the new chancellor of New York City's MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 5, 2011 11:42 AM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Oprah Winfrey arrived on cable this weekend at long last. And I do mean long.
When I interviewed Oprah in her Chicago office a few months ago, she pulled a piece of paper out of her desk drawer. It was a note, scrawled in pencil, that Stedman Graham, her boyfriend, wrote to her when they were on vacation together in April 1992. Oprah had never shared the note with MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 3, 2011 12:48 PM ET
Is Martha Stewart going the way of Oprah?
Seems so, given that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) has sealed a deal to move her syndicated daytime TV show to the Hallmark Channel.
The news comes two months after Oprah Winfrey rocked the broadcast TV world by announcing that she's quitting her syndicated show in September 2011 to focus on her new cable network, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.
Surely, neither Oprah now Martha, MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 27, 2010 12:27 PM ET
"You know I believe in signs."
You probably don't know that about Oprah Winfrey since you're not sitting around watching Oprah at 4 p.m. each day. (Rather, you're trying to keep your job, aren't you?)
But the queen of media mentioned this to me when we were talking about Tom Freston, the former Viacom (VIA.B) CEO whom Sumner Redstone fired in 2006 and Winfrey immediately went after. (Read "The Most Wanted Man MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 4, 2009 12:55 PM ET
When I give talks on the best CEOs and their career strategies, I pass on this advice: Think of your career not as a ladder but as a jungle gym. Particularly in today's tumultuous and unpredictable environment, who knows where the best opportunities will lie a year from now--or even next week? If you navigate your career as if you're on a jungle gym, you use your peripheral vision and MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 11, 2008 12:24 PM ET
High-placed media-industry sources tell me that Susan Lyne has been in touch with Oprah and her folks about running OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. Lyne, who quit the CEO post at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) last week, won't comment. Nor will Oprah. But the cable startup—a joint venture of Oprah's Harpo Inc. and Discovery Communications that's due to launch in September 2009— would be a natural fit for Lyne, MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jun 18, 2008 2:59 PM ET
For the latest on the most influential women in business, philanthropy, government, and the arts, like us on Facebook. 
In a funny and candid interview, Google VP Marissa Mayer explains how she got to the top. Watch
Xerox CEO Ursula Burns shares how she once accepted a job with Dell but ended up staying with Xerox. Watch
Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
.
Fortune Most Powerful Women
Sheryl Sandberg:
Gina Bianchini
