Oprah Winfrey should’ve never left daytime television. I’m not sure why her stint with cable isn’t working, but turns out the network might be set to lose $142.9 million this year.
The Oprah Winfrey Network revealed the figure, and the worst case scenario, is of course, Discovery putting an end to their joint-venture with OWN.
The network debuted January 1 of last year, with 80 million homes tuning in, and it actually replaced the Discovery Health Channel. People love Oprah, so everyone figured her new primetime show, Oprah’s Next Chapter, would be a huge hit.
But nope. SNL Kagan, the investment firm, told The Wrap that there could be a “significant write-down” at OWN for the first quarter of the year. They cited the cancellation of Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show as an end to their attempt to increase ratings.
Basically, Rosie was their last hope.
Oprah fired Rosie this week, cancelling her talk show and laying off an additional 30 employees, including executives. The show just wasn’t bringing in ratings. After Rosie’s firing, rumors surfaced that Oprah was struggling to get Maria Shriver on board to help the struggling network. A source told RadarOnline: “Oprah knows she needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat, literally.”
Unless Maria Shriver is a budding magician, I’m not sure how that’s literal, but anyway:
“Oprah has told Maria that she could do specials for the network with an emphasis on the human interest issues that she is passionate about.” But an OWN spokesman shot down the rumor, saying: “We love Maria, however there are no plans with her at this time to do a show for OWN.”
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