Tina Fey claims her mean-spirited Palin impersonation backfired on her “30 Rock” ratings. The low-rated show remains on the air, though. Because, you know, Hollywood is so money driven. Looks like Oprah’s now worried about the same.
If this report is true, it makes sense. The Queen of All Media has OWN, a full-blown network to get off the ground and, frankly, how much help would Oprah be this time around? Obama needed her in his 2008 primary race against Hillary Clinton, but unless the Secretary of State challenges the President, Oprah can sit this one out. Anyone she could convince to vote for Obama is likely to anyway, so there’s really no compelling reason to risk further polarizing her audience.
Oprah was a factor against Hillary, though. Believe that.
Now as the 2012 election process has officially begun, sources tell me this time around Oprah’s support will be much more private.
“For 2012, much has changed for Oprah. She now has own cable channel called OWN that has been struggling to find an audience — she isn’t going to do anything to alienate them,” a TV insider tells me. “Unlike in 2008, when a drop in ratings didn’t matter as much for the queen of TV, Oprah is now fighting every day to get people to tune into OWN.”
Oprah Winfrey’s daily talk show ratings dropped in 2008 after her highly publicized political rally for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. An October 2008 Gallup poll before the rallies but after Oprah’s public endorsement of Obama found that Oprah’s favorable ratings had fallen from 74 to 66 percent while her unfavorable ratings jumped from 17 to 26 percent. Then came news that Oprah’s TV ratings showed that her daytime audience, which was nearly 9 million at its height in 2004-05, had fallen to 7.3 million.
More here.
