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Monday, May 26, 2008
5/26: Cracks in the Oprah empire
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The New York Times wrote a piece Monday about Oprah Winfrey’s empire showing some signs of weakness..
Her TV show lost 7 percent of its ratings year over year. Circulation of her magazine is down 10 percent over the past three years. And “Oprah’s Big Give” didn’t do nearly as well as ABC had expected and she chose not to do another installment.
The story speculated that her endorsement of Barack Obama turned off her more conservative viewers and Hillary Clinton fans. (She has virtually stopped actively campaigning for him, though.)
Daily ratings for her talks how was 7.3 million, down from 7.8 million a year ago. Her show peaked at about 9 million in 2004-05. It’s still by far the No. 1 talk show and has been for more than 9 years.
Locally, her ratings in May 2008 were down an alarming 30 percent to 125,000 or so households from nearly 180,000. (Then again, “Dr. Phil” is down 30 percent in Atlanta, too, as is “Ellen.”)
What’s your take on Oprah? Tired of her? Still worship her?
