How Black Viewers Are Saving OWN

By: Michael H. Cottman | Posted: January 15, 2013 at 12:10 AM

Oprah Winfrey at the launch of OWN (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images Entertainment)

Writing at BlackAmericaWeb, Michael H. Cottman says it's no coincidence that a show about an African-American family has boosted the ratings for Oprah's cable network.

Sweetie Pie's is saving Oprah Winfrey's television network.

Actually, a more strategic effort to offer exclusive black programming is significantly boosting ratings for OWN, Winfrey's struggling two-year-old network that has caused major headaches for executives of Discovery Communications, the company that leveraged a reported $300 million to get OWN up and running.

But today, OWN is undergoing a diverse television transformation and the numbers indicate that more black folks are watching OWN simply because Oprah has more black folks on the network to watch.

This is no coincidence ...

So why didn't Oprah get with the black programming concept from the beginning?

In hindsight, it's perhaps the best decision she has made to salvage her network. And she's combining old-school programming with a state-of-the-art network.

Read Michael H. Cottman's entire piece at BlackAmericaWeb.

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