Oprah Winfrey, TV’s greatest hit-maker, is counting on Rosie O’Donnell to save her struggling cable network.
OWN — which launched New Year’s Day to un-Oprah-like ratings — has already burned through more than $150 million in start-up money without producing a single hit show.
“There is pressure,” says Debra Birnbaum, editor-in-chief of TV Guide magazine, “because clearly this is what OWN is putting all of its emphasis on for the new season.
“They have to figure out a way to get eyeballs to that network.”
Can the stand-up comic — who will broadcast from Oprah’s old Chicago studio beginning in early October — do for OWN what, say, “South Park” did for Comedy Central or “Queer Eye”for Bravo?
The irony of history’s most-successful talker looking to a former rival to save her network may be the biggest story of the upcoming fall season.
“One hit can certainly get a cable channel going,” says Robert Thompson, professor of TV and pop culture at Syracuse University. “They could certainly use their ‘Jon & Kate Plus 8.’ ”
OWN has signaled just how crucial the O’Donnell show is by giving it a lot of promotion on its air.
A one-minute trailer that started airing late last week shows O’Donnell joking: “I am the mother of four children and frankly they are teenagers and that is the reason I am going back to work.”
Oprah herself — who has started getting news out to her legion of fans in a well-read. weekly Facebook post — has been talking up Rosie, visiting her in Chicago, dining out in one of the city’s best-known restaurants. It would be impossible to miss Oprah’s endorsement of the new O’Donnell show.
She has even given Rosie her old studio and much of her former staff.
It would seem, in fact, that OWN has no bench, if Rosie does not succeed.
Earlier this year, OWN scrapped plans for a “Today”-like morning show produced by “Survivor” boss Mark Burnett. And it let actress Jenny McCarthy walk out on her deal this summer.
Rosie could be, on the other hand, a good bet.
As a TV exec who used to work for her says, “Say whatever you want about her, Rosie makes money for people.”
It has been more than a decade since Rosie has been billed as the “Queen of Nice.”
Her controversial year as co-host of “The View” included a nasty public feud with real estate mogul Donald Trump, a spat with Bill O’Reilly over the war in Iraq and an on-air screaming match with one of her own co-hosts.
“She started with such a bang, and everybody loved her,” Birnbaum notes. “What people remember now are some of the angrier moments.”
O’Donnell has said little about her new show — which will air weekdays at 7 p.m. But she has let on that it will be more “View” Rosie than “Nice” Rosie.
“When I was 33 I think the appeal of my program was there was an authentic, genuine appreciation of pop culture,” O’Donnell revealed during a press conference in July.
“I loved these people, like [Barbra] Streisand and Tom Cruise, the concept that I could meet them was really beyond my belief.”
“And now I’m 50 and both of those people have stayed in my house, right? So the enthusiasm that I had for celebrities is changed. I have evolved and grown, and the show is going to be reflective of that.”