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The market for female-oriented television is particularly tough, something Winfrey knows firsthand. She was an early investor in Oxygen, which struggled to establish itself and was sold last fall to NBC Universal. Winfrey said she had reduced her involvement earlier, noting that "the channel did not reflect my voice."
Oxygen's bigger and longer-established rival, Lifetime Television, co-owned by Disney and Hearst, also has seen its audience erode in recent years. Daytime talk shows, including Winfrey's program, have also lost viewers the past few years.
The Winfrey show's audience is down about 12% since 2005-06, although the show has performed better than its competitors and remains the top-rated syndicated talk show. This season it is averaging 7.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Even off its peak, though, the show continues to be a huge marketing vehicle for causes espoused by Winfrey, such as books she promotes through her book club, and social causes.
Winfrey also says she plans to use her talk show as a platform to promote OWN, as well as new programs she will air on it.
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It's a homespun philosophy that Discovery President and Chief Executive David Zaslav calls "inspiring people to live their best lives." Winfrey this week declined to discuss her programming plans in detail, although she emphasized that despite her demonstrated popularity with women, OWN would target a broad audience.
"We're focused on men and women and their families," she said, adding that she plans to air "what I know people relate to, what's important to their lives." Winfrey will be chairwoman of the 50-50 venture being created through the deal. Her company, Harpo, is contributing her Oprah.com Web site, while Discovery will contribute the Discovery Health Channel, which will be converted into the new channel.
That gives the new channel a head start over rivals that have to lobby cable and satellite operators for distribution. Discovery Health is already available in more than 66 million homes, according to Nielsen.
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Talk-show queen nabs a networkOprah Winfrey's empire is expanding. The billionaire and Discovery Communications announced a joint venture that will re-brand Discovery Health into The Oprah Winfrey Network.
For Discovery, a closely held company expected to go public in the second quarter, the deal represents a potentially lucrative gamble. It's trading an underperforming cable network -- Discovery Health averaged only 123,000 viewers in 2007, according to Nielsen -- for a share of Winfrey's future. Discovery's shareholders include John Malone's Discovery Holding (DISCA, news, msgs) and Advance/Newhouse Communications.
The deal is part of an effort by Discovery's Zaslav to convert some of the company's lesser-known channels to stronger brand names.
In June, Discovery is planning to relaunch its Discovery Home channel as Planet Green, an eco-friendly lifestyle channel. Earlier this month, its Discovery Times Channel became the crime-focused Investigation Discovery.
Zaslav says Discovery Health and some of the company's other channels represent underused "oceanfront real estate" because they have relatively wide distribution on cable systems across the country.
"One of our challenges is to figure out what to do with that," Zaslav says. "In a cluttered marketplace, the ability to take one of the most powerful brands in America -- Oprah -- and put it on that foundation, that's very compelling."
Winfrey hinted this week that her venture with Discovery was fated. She said she met with Zaslav two days after rereading a 1992 journal entry in which she wrote about wanting to launch a cable channel with "mindful" as opposed to "mindless" programming.
About the coincidence, Winfrey says, "That's all about what was supposed to happen."This article was reported and written by Sam Schechner for The Wall Street Journal.
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