Two New Shows on Oprah Winfrey Network
Oprah Winfreys 10-month-old cable channel had a reset of sorts on Monday with the introduction of The Rosie Show, a 7 p.m. talk show by Rosie ODonnell, and Oprahs Lifeclass, a remix of old episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show, at 8 p.m.
The ratings for the first night reaffirm just how hard its going to be to draw in viewers.
The Rosie Show on OWN had an average of 497,000 viewers on Monday, far fewer than the millions she reached as a daytime talk show host a decade ago. Oprahs Lifeclass, which was supposed to benefit from the Rosie lead-in, had an average of 333,000 viewers.
Among the female viewers ages 25 to 54 that OWN is trying to reach, Rosie averaged a 0.44 rating while Oprah averaged a 0.40 rating.
Both shows had been promoted for weeks; indeed, ever since July, when Ms. Winfrey named herself chief executive of her troubled cable channel, the Oct. 10 premiere of Rosie and Oprahs Lifeclass has been circled on the calendar as a fresh start.The average viewership at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. were certainly higher than most of the past programming on OWN and, the channel pointed out, more than twice as high as the averages for Discovery Health, the channel that OWN replaced in January. But for OWN to achieve the profits that Ms. Winfrey and her partner, Discovery Communications, hope for, both programs will have to show growth.
To encourage widespread sampling of the two programs, Discovery simulcast them on four other channels on Monday night: Discovery Fit & Health; Investigation Discovery; Planet Green; and its most popular channel among female viewers, TLC. Combined, the five channels helped Rosie to reach an average of 1.5 milli! on viewe rs during the 7 p.m. hour, and helped Oprah reach about 1.2 million viewers during the 8 p.m. hour.
Now the channel will see how many of those viewers of other channels will seek out OWN on future nights.
The debut on Monday of "The Rosie Show' -- a mixture of chat with first guest Russell Brand, games and music -- was seen by 497,000 viewers on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
But thousands of viewers turned channels when it came to Winfrey's new show "Oprah's Lifeclass" -- in which she shares insights, lessons and old clips from 25 years of "The Oprah Winfrey Show". Ratings data showed 330,000 Americans watched that show's debut.
Both new series also were aired across five other cable channels operated by OWN's partner, Discovery Communications Inc , reaching a combined total audience of 1.5 million and 1.2 million, respectively.
OWN said audiences for each show were up more than 200 percent from those tuning in a year ago to the Discovery Health network, which OWN has now replaced.
But the numbers were far below the audiences that both O'Donnell and Winfrey, regarded as the most influential woman on U.S. television, used to draw on network television. "The Oprah Winfrey Show" had a regular audience of about 6.4 million U.S. viewers before it ended in May.
OWN president Erik Logan said that the new fall season was "off to an encouraging start. This is the next right step as we continue to build the network."
The two new programs kicked off the second season of OWN after its launch in January 2011 as lifestyle, female-oriented cable channel.
But early audiences soon began changing channels and by July, Winfrey announced she would takeover as CEO of OWN in a bid to refocus the channel's direction and put more of herself on screen.
O'Donnell's new daily evening show marks the return to the TV talk format of the controversial comedian after her Emmy-winning program of the 1990s and a brief stint as co-host on "The View".
But some reviews ! were as lukewarm as the ratings. The Hollywood Reporter said the show was "ramshackle" and "a little crazy" but called it interesting to watch.
Variety called it "curiously flat and understated", while the Los Angeles Times said "The Rosie Show" had a "not-bad, pretty good, kinda funny, sort of smart debut."