3 Reasons the Oprah Winfrey Network was a Bad Idea

Normally, making a list for an online audience would mean the writer has at least 5 points to make. Not this time. It's clear to me why the Oprah Winfrey Network is dead in the water. And I suspect that people who are supporters of Oprah can agree with this tri-sided reasoning.

First of all It doesn't matter how popular someone is. At some point, they will have short comings in the business world. Be it poor planning, lack of resources, or general mistiming. There are a myriad of reasons someone may fail to launch a new product, company, or in this case, successful television network.

Oprah and her staff obviously misjudged her fanbase Oprah has fans of all shapes and sizes, but her core demographic consists of older individuals, who don't have cable or satellite television. As a fairly young person, I can tell you that U was never checking for Oprah when her show was syndicated. I could case less where her network is, but a lot of the people who do don't have access to it.

The ones who do have access to her show probably aren't watching for reason number 2: there is too much competition. Lifetime and Oxygen are just like O.W.N. They both cater to the same audience(note:women). Why would someone stop watching either, just because there's another channel with a different name? C'mon now!

It's like if someone tried to launch a new channel that was based around cooking shows. We already have the Food Network. There's no need for more of the same niche programming, that doesn't bring anything new to the table. That's exactly what The Oprah network is. Low ratings are proof that everyone else feels the same.

Finally, cable networks don't grow as fast as basic television networks do. See Spike TV. They can't raise their ratings much if there isn't a live UFC event on. So, unless Oprah plans on having Gina Carano fight live on N.W.O., I don't see people tuning in any time soon.

hindsight is 20/20. Mistakes can be corrected. Now that her syndicated show is over with, she has a lot more time on her hands, which can be used to reevaluate what she wants to do with her tv channel. If it fails, she can take solace in the fact that she gave it her all. If she succeeds, she can high five everyone around her, because they beat the odds in an already flooded market.