Discovery Communications expects OWN, the cable network joint venture with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo, to start throwing off a profit in the back-half of the year, CEO David Zaslav clarified at an investor conference Wednesday.
Discovery has previously mostly focused on predicting that the venture would reach cash flow breakeven in the second half of 2013 and then start making a profit. However, Zaslav last year also said that Discovery would start seeing such a profit from OWN in the back-half of the year.
Appearing at the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York in a session that was webcast, Zaslav lauded the "enormous success" and growing audience of the network. "We will be making money on OWN" later this year and are "ahead of where we thought we'd be," he said."Oprah is working really hard," and OWN even has strong ratings on Saturday nights without Winfrey on the air, he said.
For the second quarter to-date, the young cable network is up 12 percent in total viewers compared to last year.
Source, 2
Oprah rising up and proving the haters wrong.