Talk show host Rosie O'Donnell returned to TV this week with The Rosie Show, her new early evening talk show on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. Unfortunately for Rosie, it was a splash.
At least in terms of number of viewers. And that all depends on how you slice the cake.
The show, which premiered Monday at 7 p.m. on OWN, garnered nearly a half million total viewers, pulling in a somewhat dismal .44 rating among its target audience: women ages 25 to 54.
But if you compare those numbers to the handful of viewers watching Discovery Health at this time last year, that's 200 percent more viewers. Discovery Health was the channel and programming previous to OWN.
Oh, and Rosie aired simultaneously on a number of Discovery Channel networks. So if you collect all those viewers in a pot, you get something closer to 1.5 million viewers. Not too shabby at all.
Which means we won't get a real sense of how well Rosie's doing until it airs a few more weeks and we start to see some trends.
Did you catch the show this week? What do you think? Add your comment in the comments section below.
Comments
I think Oprah is a brilliant business woman and I truly can’t understand why she choose to do a talk show with Rosie. She’s had two shots at talk shows – her own and The View and ruined both because of her anger issues and controlling – everything has to be her way attitude…was very abusive watching her – can’t imagine how it felt to be on the other end of words in person…I personally won’t ever watch her show.
I enjoy watching Rosie because I think she’s an excellent stand-up comedian. However, when I watched her talking to Valerie Harper, I wondered how many people in her audience actually remembered the good ol days of television. The two women made references to many stars that people in their 20s and 30s probably never heard of before. What makes me very sad is that Oprah is busy giving “Life Classes” when one must wonder what is wrong with her own life that she can’t just relax and enjoy the rest of her days in private. Her appeal is that she seemed to be one of us. Her final show and her new platform leads a viewer to believe that she thinks she is “above” every one else. This is unattractive. Also, by airing her “behind the scences” reality show, she informed viewers that her show was actually just a business. We never saw it that way. We thought of her as our “best” girlfriend.