Celeb News: Losses At Oprah's Network: $330M

Stepfon

Quote:

The losses at Oprah Winfrey’s stumbling cable channel are approaching a staggering $330 million, according to a report over the weekend.

And now industry insiders are predicting the Oprah Winfrey Network will not be able to survive another year if it does not find a hit show and make a dramatic turnaround.

Discovery, which partnered 50-50 with Winfrey to launch the network and has been underwriting its costs, has invested nearly $600 million in it since 2008, according to an extensive report in Businessweek magazine.

But since it started on the air in January 2011, “OWN may have lost as much as $330 million,” the magazine reports.

The magazine quotes one Wall Street media analyst calling the channel the most “successful failure in television today.”

David Zaslav, the chief executive officer of Discovery Communications who talked Oprah into the idea of OWN, is famously impatient with money-losing operations within his company.

He closed a channel Discovery operated with the New York Times in 2008 and just last month killed Planet Green, an eco channel.

Zaslav has one of the biggest salaries in cable TV — $42 million in 2010 — and raised eyebrows when he bought Conan O’Brien’s Central Park West apartment two years ago as a second home for a reported $25 million.

“I really can’t see Zaslav losing this kind of money for much longer,” one longtime business associate said last week.

Winfrey appeared before advertisers two weeks ago to, in effect, ask for more time.

“I am in the climb of my life,” she told them. “I am climbing Kilimanjaro.”

Though Winfrey herself has relatively little money invested in the channel, her image as the most successful TV star of her generation is on the line.

E-mails to OWN and Oprah’s production company, Harpo, were not returned yesterday.

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainmen...#ixzz1uDSqlhmg

MovinKindaSlow

The stars are falling. The rapture is imminent

UnusualBoy

That's a lot of money

Konichiwa

Hopefully she can turn it around.

Will this affect her placement on Forbes?

umich

Stephen

Ouch

Miss Cleo Jenkins

She should've moved her talk show to the new network....Who wants to watch the Oprah Winfrey Network and not see OPRAH everyday??

GaGaFan

Honestly, ending Oprah was enough....but starting the channel was excessive.

DWG

Holy crap, that's a lot of money.

They're gonna' have to come up with something 'cause they really do need a hit show. I would hate to see the network fold because I like Oprah's Next Chapter, Oprah's Master Class, Oprah's Lifeclass and Visionaries: Inside the Creative Mind (though, the last one only aired for a short period of time).

It's too bad that O can't steal the TV hosts she made famous: Rachael Ray, Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.

WoozyFloozy

**** you for losing more money in a year than I'll ever see, Oprah.

Elle♥

I could put that amount of money to so much use for myself

Kworb

Such a massive fail.

simon

I hope she comebacks. OWN has some very positive and life-changing shows!!

Devon

The network isn't the problem. The problem is that half the country can't get the channel since it's on basic cable. I would watch OWN if it was on my cable package, but over half the country doesn't even get OWN.

When she ended her show, she told everyone to join her on OWN. Too bad half of her fans couldn't.

MusicTalker

We cannot let this happen to the QUEEN.

MusicTalker

Quote:

Originally posted by Devon

The network isn't the problem. The problem is that half the country can't get the channel since it's on basic cable. I would watch OWN if it was on my cable package, but over half the country doesn't even get OWN.

When she ended her show, she told everyone to join her on OWN. Too bad half of her fans couldn't.

Same. I don't get the channel but I would watch it all the time otherwise.

DrunkNHotBoyz

Quote:

Her eyebrows are SNATCHED. I can't.

omgitsralph

I will not allow this buffoonery to happen to the queen.
I think she should go back to having her own tv show.
Majority of the audiences are senior citizens and what happens when they're gone?

Haunted.

Damn.

ifyouseekLEM

Come on O, gurl.