Oprah Winfrey's Cable Channel Struggles to Find an Audience

Most of us assume that anything Oprah Winfrey touches will be an immediate success, especially when it comes to media. But two months after the launch of her Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), her cable channel is still having trouble finding an audience.

It's not that viewers are tired of seeing Oprah, one of the 11 media people to watch in 2011. Ratings for her syndicated The Oprah Winfrey Show are up. But until that show ends its run in September, she'll not be able to devote the face time needed to give OWN the attention it needs.

Winfrey hopefully knew that launching a cable channel is a huge risk, even with her star power. That's because the brand she built by appearing on top-rated local stations across the country for a quarter century is now being tested in the cable universe.

In this arena, hundreds of cable channels compete for attention. OWN isn't immediately recognizable as a Winfrey brand and even the upper-level channel position that it receives on most cable systems is a disadvantage.

Media observers are already offering their advice on what Winfrey should do to boost the ratings. What should trouble her the most is that OWN is being watched by fewer people than Discovery Health, the channel it replaced.

That will be one milestone Winfrey will have to reach and exceed from the moment she ends her talk show. Her personal and business reputation depend on it.

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