Rosie Or OWN: Who Was More At Fault?

After less than a year on the air, numerous format changes and more lows than highs, The Rosie Show was given its walking papers this past week. Rosie O’Donnell’s signing was originally thought to be a coup for a cable network that desperately needed it, but in the end, it did nothing but waste money and force its star to move to a new city.

Almost six months ago, the premiere of The Rosie Show attracted nearly five hundred thousand viewers. That figure might not have been a dream come true for programming executives, but it was enough to promise something better may lay ahead, but over the past month or so, ratings dropped below two hundred thousand. Something had to be done, and apparently, Winfrey decided cutting her loses was better policy than trying to further tinker with the formula.

So, what the hell happened? How could a woman whose talk show was so popular ten years ago completely strike out this time around? Well, that’s a complicated question with a lot of possible answers. Where you stand probably depends on what you think of O’Donnell herself.

If one isn’t a fan of the comedienne, one might argue the biggest problem was OWN itself. Talk shows geared towards mothers don’t typically succeed at 7 PM, especially when they’re frequently preempted by crime shows taken from ID Discovery. Because there was nothing surrounding The Rosie Show to entice viewers, attracting viewers became that much more difficult, and since OWN isn’t the type of station one would likely stumble upon scrolling through the guide, the majority of people who did watch had to specifically remember to hop over during that time period.

If one isn’t a fan of the comedienne however, one might argue that Rosie never should have nixed her studio audience and never should have spent so much time interacting with guests. O’Donnell has always been at her best being zany and goofy, and all too often that side of her personality didn’t come out. Given the prevalence of DVRs, if fans really wanted to watch, they could have just recorded the show everyday, regardless of what other programming OWN may have had or not had.

What do you think? Who was more at fault here? Let us know your thoughts by voting in the poll below…

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