Business
Oprah Winfrey Network struggles: losses incured to date: $330 million
Oprah Winfrey speaks during the OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network portion of the 2011 Winter TCA press tour held at the Langham Hotel on January 6, 2011 in Pasadena, California. PHOTO/Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Oprah is reportedly facing some steep financial headwinds as she tries to turn her struggling cable network around.
Oprah herself seemed to sum up the dispiriting atmosphere at OWN.
“If I were writing a book about it, I might call the book ‘101 Mistakes,'” she said.
One of those mistakes might be the apparently vast sums of money that OWN has bled through since its inception. Bloomberg Businessweek reported last week that the network may have lost a whopping US$330 million since it began in 2008. An analyst told the magazine that it was the most “successful failure in television today.”
While Oprah does not have a personal financial stake in the company, it is still undoubtedly a black eye for her.
However, there may be some bright news on the horizon. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that ratings for the network have ticked up recently.