Oprah is not entirely untouchable it seems, both in her personal life and as a businesswoman. While at O Magazine’s annual conference last month in Los Angeles the media mogul told a crowd of over 5,000 fans that she had overcome a breast cancer scare just a week before, having been told by doctors that it was just a false alarm. O Magazine has seen a 22 percent decline in sales since Winfrey ended her talk show 18 months ago, much in line with the 25 percent decline her staff told her to expect. With a smaller platform on her OWN cable channel, and print media experiencing a downturn, Oprah has come to terms with the possibility of the ending the publication.
“Ultimately, you have to make money because you are a business,” she told the New York Times during the conference. “I let other people worry about that. I worry about the message. I am always, always, always about holding true to the vision and the message, and when you are true to that, then people respond.”
“Obviously, the show was helping in ways that you know I hadn’t accounted for,” she added. “I’m not interested, you know, in bleeding money.”
The 58-year-old star has seen her empire wane somewhat since the launch of OWN, with the network having returned relatively poor ratings since its launch in January 2011. A Business Week report revealed that the network has lost upwards of $330 million dollars under parent company Discovery Communications, who also owns TLC and Animal Planet.
Though Oprah’s personal finance is most likely in no danger, her latest endeavor may prove to be difficult for her brand. OWN has undergone a number of managerial shakeups in an effort to right the ship, but it may prove too little too late. A special two hour edition of Oprah’s Favorite Things brought in less than a million viewers last week, compared to the audience of over nine million she commanded in 2010.
