OWN or ID-2?

[carolinaradio]

I swear, every time I go by OWN, they are showing hours upon hours of "48 Hours Hard Evidence" (most notably), "Police Women Of Broward County", "Dateline on", "Sins & Secrets", "The Will", etc. marathons.

Granted, they have a few original series and air blocks of "Dr. Phil" reruns in the morning, but is this what OWN has come to? Re-runs of shows borrowed from ID (and even TLC) well over half of the time?

I realize this stuff is popular with the target audience, but I kind of question what the point is of a network that shares so much programming with somewhat of a "sister" network.

 

[crainbebo]

Why doesn't OWN go back in the Harpo archives and pull out some classic late 1980s Oprah shows? That would be more interesting than "the ID Rerun Channel".

-crainbebo

 

[carolinaradio]

Why doesn't OWN go back in the Harpo archives and pull out some classic late 1980s Oprah shows? That would be more interesting than "the ID Rerun Channel".

-crainbebo

That's what I was thinking. Oprah did so well in syndication for so many years, that would be pretty interesting to see and it seems like it would do well. When I see most of the stuff they're airing, I just don't think about Oprah.

 

[nathannah]

Why doesn't OWN go back in the Harpo archives and pull out some classic late 1980s Oprah shows? That would be more interesting than "the ID Rerun Channel".

-crainbebo

This idea is why Oxygen let Oprah invest in them in the first place when they started in 2000. They were promised reruns. Instead they got an "aftershow" that pretty much might as well have been a webcast that attracted only the most obsessed of Oprah fans, which is why they were glad when she took her interest out of that network. She's just been using the 'rerun' angle as a bait-and-switch for all of her cable investments.

I'm beginning to realize that we'll only see Oprah reruns when she passes away years from now. She keeps promising reruns, but will pull them back in the last moment or only airs bits and pieces among retrospective shows. Yet we get to tolerate Dr. Phil's archive of skeevery daily instead on OWN in exchange. :

 

[sandiegoinexile]

Comcast On Demand has been offering a handful of "classic" Oprah shows for the past couple months and I think one night of OWN is dedicated to showing these old episodes.

One of the comments that Oprah has made regarding the slow start of the new network was her not understanding that niche cable channels don't succeed with a full slate of new programming, and that success is usually built one night, or one show at a time. That does seem the case with many of the lower-rated networks (bio, style, ID, bet, gmc). They all have boatloads of re-purposed programming and only a handful of new shows. I'm not sure that using that strategy at this stage will help the woeful OWN.

On the plus side, I did get a notice from Comcast that OWN is moving from the mid-level digital tier to the basic starter tier in mid-December. That will increase eyeball potential.

 

[carolinaradio]

Comcast On Demand has been offering a handful of "classic" Oprah shows for the past couple months and I think one night of OWN is dedicated to showing these old episodes.

One of the comments that Oprah has made regarding the slow start of the new network was her not understanding that niche cable channels don't succeed with a full slate of new programming, and that success is usually built one night, or one show at a time. That does seem the case with many of the lower-rated networks (bio, style, ID, bet, gmc). They all have boatloads of re-purposed programming and only a handful of new shows. I'm not sure that using that strategy at this stage will help the woeful OWN.

On the plus side, I did get a notice from Comcast that OWN is moving from the mid-level digital tier to the basic starter tier in mid-December. That will increase eyeball potential.

OWN only appears to run older "Oprah" re-runs from 8-10am. They air "Oprah's Next Chapter" and that "where are they now"-type show that follows up on old Oprah guests in primetime.

I commend OWN for starting out with an extended slate of original programming, but I do agree that it would have been smarter to have started with just an original show or two (perhaps one hosted by Oprah), then phase in the likes of Gayle King, Rosie O'Donnell, etc gradually. It's really surprising to see how far the network has fallen from its hyped sign-on. They're borrowing Undercover Boss from TLC, also. I don't know if these would have been the smartest shows to sign on with, though.

Seems like a lot of the channel launches Discovery has been involved in lately have not done well. The Hub was struggling (not sure about now), OWN's woes, and I'm not really hearing anything positive about Destination America. ID has been an exception. I don't have a very positive feeling about OWN's long-term future.

 

[nathannah]

Seems like a lot of the channel launches Discovery has been involved in lately have not done well. The Hub was struggling (not sure about now), OWN's woes, and I'm not really hearing anything positive about Destination America. ID has been an exception. I don't have a very positive feeling about OWN's long-term future.

The Hub has been doing better as it gets out of the terrible agreements it had under Discovery Kids where it's been buried and the HD channel has better parity with the other kids networks, and their show premieres are getting much better press these days (easy when Nick continues to think putting the guy who played "Fred" in a Mork & Mindy ripoff is a good idea for "original programming"). Compared to Nick botching up NickMom on Nick Jr. and turning TeenNick into a minefield of Aussie/UK product and sitcoms aired years ago, the Hub looks downright good in comparison.

I keep forgetting Destination America exists. It just seems to exist as a band-aid to fix what damage Planet Green did, and you suspect that a new format or channel merger with Fit & Health is ahead in its future.

As for Investigation Discovery, it's doing well now, but in two years, what happens when all the viewers figure out every show is just 'murder case starts...talking heads...trial...result'? It is a very monotonous network with lookalike programming, and filled with the worst voiceover announcers in existence. The only reason it's doing well is because Lifetime can only get and make so many made-for-TV movies these days, and their reenactments in their programming are pretty much existing to give away SAG cards.

 

[carolinaradio]

The Hub has been doing better as it gets out of the terrible agreements it had under Discovery Kids where it's been buried and the HD channel has better parity with the other kids networks, and their show premieres are getting much better press these days (easy when Nick continues to think putting the guy who played "Fred" in a Mork & Mindy ripoff is a good idea for "original programming"). Compared to Nick botching up NickMom on Nick Jr. and turning TeenNick into a minefield of Aussie/UK product and sitcoms aired years ago, the Hub looks downright good in comparison.

I keep forgetting Destination America exists. It just seems to exist as a band-aid to fix what damage Planet Green did, and you suspect that a new format or channel merger with Fit & Health is ahead in its future.

As for Investigation Discovery, it's doing well now, but in two years, what happens when all the viewers figure out every show is just 'murder case starts...talking heads...trial...result'? It is a very monotonous network with lookalike programming, and filled with the worst voiceover announcers in existence. The only reason it's doing well is because Lifetime can only get and make so many made-for-TV movies these days, and their reenactments in their programming are pretty much existing to give away SAG cards.

I think The Hub has improved in primetime, also. I LOVED The Wonder Years, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Family Ties, but let's face it, they aren't a great fit on a kids channel in 2012. I'm sure I'm somewhat alone with this opinion, but I think that was a positive move to move the older series out of the primetime line-up.

I've always thought some "news" programming would be nice on ID. Sort of like some of the old Court-TV programming and cover murder trials in the news, but don't go all over-the-top like the Nancy Grace types. I doubt Discovery would want to put those resources in to it, though, because they have never really done news programming and don't have those resources readily available. I agree that it runs together. Some up-to-date coverage would help break the monotonousness of the network up.

Destination America has been so many different things. Travel & Living, Home & Leisure, Home, Planet Green. Starting to think it's going to take a miracle for anything to ever do well there. Discovery has tried so many concepts on so many different channels. I'd like to see a history-based channel from them that was as focused as Science, but I think that was already tried with Discovery Civilization or Times or whatever that was. I think a lot of this is just good evidence that we have too many channels, and it's very difficult for a new network to break through at this point (actually, it has been that way for quite a while). I mean, look at how many channels OWN is actually up against.

 

[ding12]

I'm beginning to realize that we'll only see Oprah reruns when she passes away years from now. She keeps promising reruns, but will pull them back in the last moment or only airs bits and pieces among retrospective shows. Yet we get to tolerate Dr. Phil's archive of skeevery daily instead on OWN in exchange. :

Really? Is there that much of a demand of for old Oprah reruns? Even ones from the '80s? Ok, maybe when her show was on syndication, but now Oprah is likely less relevant. She keeps a smaller more dedicated audience to Oprah's Next Chapter. Anyways Oprah has tried to distance herself from most of those 80's episodes which were sleazier or just so out of date. But there were a few where she did guest recaps later on.

 

[nathannah]

I'm beginning to realize that we'll only see Oprah reruns when she passes away years from now. She keeps promising reruns, but will pull them back in the last moment or only airs bits and pieces among retrospective shows. Yet we get to tolerate Dr. Phil's archive of skeevery daily instead on OWN in exchange. :

Really? Is there that much of a demand of for old Oprah reruns? Even ones from the '80s? Ok, maybe when her show was on syndication, but now Oprah is likely less relevant. She keeps a smaller more dedicated audience to Oprah's Next Chapter. Anyways Oprah has tried to distance herself from most of those 80's episodes which were sleazier or just so out of date. But there were a few where she did guest recaps later on.

There's a reason Me-TV, Antenna TV, Game Show Network and VH1 Classic exist; people do want to see older content. If it's a smaller audience or the content is embarrassing now. Yes, there's going to be a lot of out of date crap in daytime talk reruns, but we have cable networks archiving everything now, even three episode reality bombs and it's not out there so they can air newer crap that just won't connect? Doesn't make much sense.