Hard times hit Oprah Winfrey's cable TV network

George Burns / Associated Press

Rosie O'Donnell (left) and Oprah Winfrey when O'Donnell's show premiered; it was canceled March 16.

When Oprah Winfrey had a talk show on ABC, she could do no wrong. The queen of afternoon television hosted Hollywood's biggest stars. She famously gave away Pontiacs to her studio audience in 2004.

"Everybody gets a car!" she shouted, jumping up and down. "Everybody gets a car!"

Winfrey has had less reason to celebrate since she ventured into the fragmented universe of cable television, launching the Oprah Winfrey Network in 2011.

According to Horizon Media, a New York ad agency, OWN attracts an average of 250,000 viewers in prime time. That's a pittance compared with the 12.6 million viewers who watched her afternoon talk show during its final season on ABC.

This has led to predictable retrenchment at OWN, a joint venture between Discovery Communications and Harpo Productions, Winfrey's production company. On March 16, it canceled "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" after a mere five months. On Monday, it announced it was trimming 30 jobs.

"It's difficult to make tough business decisions that affect people's lives," a humbled Winfrey said in the statement. "The economics of a start-up cable network just don't work with the cost structure that was in place.! "

Winfrey's difficulties are more proof that the personality simply isn't as important as platform in the media business. Self-proclaimed "King of Media" Howard Stern went from ubiquity to relative obscurity in 2005 when he left terrestrial to go to satellite. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann has seen his audience dwindle since he moved to independent broadcaster Current TV. Conservative talk show Glenn Beck wields less influence after leaving Fox News. His show now appears on GBTV, his subscription Web network.

How serious are the troubles at OWN? On Monday, the network said Neal Kirsch, Discovery's U.S. finance chief, was moving to the network to become its chief operating officer. It's not surprising that Discovery would want to keep a closer watch over the network's books. Discovery is OWN's primary funding source; as of Dec. 31, it had spent $312 million. Bloomberg News reported that Discovery is monitoring the network's performance in case it needs to write down its investment.

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