Free Republic

Rosie O’Donnell’s TV history is repeating itself — and, as in the past, it’s getting ugly. O’Donnell’s talk show, “The Rosie Show,” is imploding just five months after launching on Oprah Winfrey’s little-watched OWN cable network. Not only is “The Rosie Show” a ratings disaster — it averaged just 150,000 viewers last week — but O’Donnell is selling her $2.5 million mansion in Chicago, where the show tapes, and reportedly wants to move the production to New York. That would leave producer Harpo with empty, expensive, unused studio space it might not want to surrender so easily. [Snip] Adding...

Discovery CEO David Zaslav was as optimistic as he could be yesterday when he spoke to analysts about his OWN joint venture with Oprah Winfrey. But his company’s annual report filed this morning at the SEC tells a slightly different story: It says that Discovery has already contributed $312M to the venture, far more than its original $189M commitment. What’s more, Discovery “expects to provide significant additional funding to OWN.” -snip- While Discovery owns 50% of OWN, it can’t ensure that it will be repaid because Winfrey “holds operational rights related to programming and marketing, as well as selection and...

Discovery Communications (DISCA) Q4 2011 Earnings Call February 16, 2012 8:30 AM ET Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2011 Discovery Communications, Incorporated Earnings Conference Call. -snip- Richard Greenfield - BTIG, LLC, Research Division A couple of questions. The first one, David, you definitely sounded more upbeat about OWN, but this is a channel that's had pretty constant management of people over the last couple of years, and I think consumers are still struggling to even know the channel that OWN is actually on. I was just wondering from just an agreement standpoint what...

International talk show queen Oprah Winfrey has issued an apology for breaking TV ratings rules and urging fans to watch her Oprah's Next Chapter show instead of the Grammy Awards, according to reports. Oprah invited followers to turn off music's big night and switch to her network, OWN, on Twitter. "Everyone who can please turn to OWN, especially if u have a Nielsen box (sic). Commercial Grammy people..you can turn to Own," she tweeted.

Oprah Winfrey issued an apology on Monday for asking viewers with a Nielsen box to tune into OWN. "Every1 who can please turn to OWN especially if u have a Nielsen box," she wrote via Twitter on Sunday, just as the Grammy Awards telecast began opposite Oprah's Next Chapter. She later added, "Commercial Grammy people..u can turn to OWN."

Procter & Gamble Co. reported a $1.69 billion profit in its fiscal second quarter of 2011, a 49 percent decline from the same quarter a year ago.

Rosie O'Donnell's talk show on OWN continues its downward spiral. "The Rosie Show" averaged only 229,000 viewers at 7 p.m. in its second full week last week (Oct. 17-21), down from the tepid 321,000 viewership average at 7 p.m. in its inaugural week. At 11 p.m., when the show's repeated, it averaged 119,000 viewers last week (compared to 143,000 viewers at midnight in its first week). Oprah Winfrey's "Oprah's Lifeclass," which follows "The Rosie Show" at 8 p.m., fared better than its lead-in, averaging 301,000 viewers last week (down from 310,000 in its first week). In its midnight repeat, "Lifeclass"...

Oprah Winfrey, TV’s greatest hit-maker, is counting on Rosie O’Donnell to save her struggling cable network. OWN -- which launched New Year’s Day to un-Oprah-like ratings -- has already burned through more than $150 million in start-up money without producing a single hit show. “There is pressure,” says Debra Birnbaum, editor-in-chief of TV Guide magazine, “because clearly this is what OWN is putting all of its emphasis on for the new season. “They have to figure out a way to get eyeballs to that network.” Can the stand-up comic -- who will broadcast from Oprah’s old Chicago studio beginning in...

A new FaceBook group has been started to organize a boycott of advertisers on the Oprah Winfrey Network, due to her recent political support of Barack Obama. Click the source URL to go to the group. A list of advertisers is posted at this page: http://stopobamanowsd.wordpress.com/oprahs-advertisers/

Oprah Winfrey's six-month-old network OWN was down 24 percent in adult viewership in May, compared to the May 2010 ratings of Discovery Health, which OWN replaced, according to TVbytheNumbers. Its numbers were down in demographics versus Discovery Health's May '10 ratings across the board. In women 18-34, the drop was 24 percent. For women 18-49, it was 19 percent. In women 24-54, likely its target demo, it was down 17 percent. And in adults 18-49, it was down a whopping 30 percent. Oprah replaces OWN CEOAlmost from the time of its January 1 debut, OWN has struggled to even match...

An extremely hard hitting, non PC interview with Dutch Member of Parliament and anti Islamic campaigner Geert Wilders. You may not agree with everything he says, but he deserves full credit for courage and coherence.

California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman was among the loudest proponents of whistleblower protections during the Bush years ̶ particularly when the subject was the Iraq war ̶ but GOP staffers say his attitude seems to have changed with the shift to a Democratic administration. Waxman spoke out loudly for protecting whistleblowers from “incompetent management” (Snip) Waxman chose to ignore a large stamp stating “NOT FOR PUBLIC DISCLOSURE” on a series of emails between Dan Grazer, the data manager for the NRC’s Yucca Mountain licensing program, and Judge Roy Hawkins, the chief administrative judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board,

Discovery Communications and Oprah Winfrey have pushed out Christina Norman as chief executive of OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, after a tough start for the five-month old cable network. Discovery Chief Operating Officer Peter Ligouri will take over from Norman on an interim basis, in addition to his current role. OWN, which launched in the United States on January 1, has struggled to win ratings in its first five months.

This, the first of a series of articles on the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood, establishes that three individuals other than Obama are listed in public records as owners and taxpayers on the property. Barack Obama is not among at least three people listed as current owners and taxpayers of the mansion his family calls home in Chicago's upscale Kenwood neighborhood, according to public records. WND reported in December 2008 that William Miceli, the attorney for convicted political operative Tony Rezko and a fundraiser for Obama, owns the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood.

Sorry President Obama, you'll have to forgo the Oprah Effect this time around. The influential talk show host isn't planning to publicly endorse Obama during his 2012 reelection campaign because she fears it might alienate viewers from tuning into her recently-launched Oprah Winfrey Network.

What is happening with OWN? It started out so promising....and over the last few weeks, I can't find any reason to watch it. I keep on seeing alot of "shock" medical shows and garbage and repeats from Discovery Health. Does anybody know what happened? I would have thought that Oprah would be alot more on the ball with this project.

In its fifth full week of programming (1/31-2/6), OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network was down 17% vs. last week with last week among women 25-54 in total day (40,000 vs. 48,000), and down 34% among women 25-54 in prime time (54,000 vs. 82,000). OWN is now well below last year’s women 25-54 averages for Discovery Health . OWN replaced Discovery Health which averaged 51,000 W25-54 Total Day, and 84,000 W25-54 in Prime Time during 2010. Week of January 31 – February 6, 2011 (Live+Same Day ratings) SELECTED NETWORKS Prime-time Women 25-54 (Live+SD) Network (000s) Lifetime 394 Hallmark 182 Oxygen 133...

In Dinesh D’Souza’s book, Letters to a Young Conservative, D’Douza explains in layman’s terms the difference between conservatives and liberals. At root, conservatives and liberals see the world so differently because they have different conceptions of human nature. Liberals tend to believe in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s proposition that human nature is intrinsically good. Conservatives know better. They recognize that there are two principles in human nature – good and evil – and these are in constant conflict. I’m always reminded of this fact when I hear Oprah Winfrey speak. Indeed, Ms. Winfrey is the quintessential liberal, and her new network –...

A day after the launch of her ambitious new TV network, the message board on Oprah Winfrey's Web site was flooded with posts from fans upset that they now have to pay to see the talk-show queen. "Cannot believe Oprah would launch a new show on a cable channel that is not part of the basic service," wrote a fan tagged johnjanesmith.

After billions of years the Sun finally has an owner -- a woman from Spain's soggy region of Galicia said Friday she had registered the star at a local notary public as being her property. Angeles Duran, 49, told the online edition of daily El Mundo she took the step in September after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our solar system. There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she...