Is Cable One Market Oprah Can't Conquer?

As the rich and powerful—from Tom Hanks to Barack and Michelle Obama—lined up in May to tape the final episodes of , the door was swinging the other way at OWN, Winfrey's five-month-old cable channel. On May 6, Chief Executive Officer Christina Norman departed in the wake of disappointing ratings and growing losses, becoming the second top executive to leave the Oprah Winfrey Network.

For Winfrey, whose self-help empire includes film production, a hit magazine, and a book club that transformed publishing, cable television may pose her biggest challenge yet. Since its heavily promoted first week, the network's average viewership has fallen from 204,000 to 153,000 people as of May 15, according to Nielsen data. In the lucrative prime-time market, OWN draws an average of just 112,000 viewers in its target audience of 25- to 54-year-old women—less than half those who tune in to Discovery Communications (DISCA) female-skewed channel TLC.