• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 6, 2010

Everything in TV costs more than you first think it will. The Oprah Winfrey Network? Looks like that'll set back Discovery Communications, who co-owns it with Winfrey's Harpo Productions and operates the network, more than the expected $100 million.

OWN has had its share of start-up executives coming and goings. It's hard to get things just right in TV these days. For example, broadcast TV networks are notorious for changing cast members at the start of the program, working to get the right fit. Is this hubris, personal whim, or hard-core, non-emotional processes at work?

Everyone has a note or two about how things should really be. At the end of the day, one person has to have the vision about how things should look. After that, it's all about faith.

If TV shows -- at least network TV shows - have a less than one in ten chance of succeeding, what odds do we give new but traditionally run and distributed cable networks?  I'm not sure. Many networks stumble out of the gate. But unlike individual TV shows, they don't go away so fast.

A fully distributed cable network -- as OWN will be at launch -- can handle a lot. After all how many cable network start-ups come with a $100 million multi-year Procter & Gamble advertising deal? OWN has about two dozen shows in the works -- including one from Rosie O'Donnell, who had a strong daytime syndicated show of her own.

Still, OWN only has about three full nights of programming set to go right now.

Some cable networks just don't work -- Fox Reality Channel was one of those. With reality TV being part and parcel of every broadcast and cable network these days, having one devoted to reality didn't seem to make sense.

ABC's SoapNet abandoned the ghost as well -- maybe for the same reason, that networks have a variety of TV program genres on their air. You can get soap operas, or their more modern name -- serialized dramas -- almost everywhere.  Also, with the growth of DVRs, the repeats of afternoon soaps have to be easily accessed.

Of course OWN walks into a marketplace of established networks that target just women: Lifetime, Oxygen, and, for the most part, Bravo. This doesn't mean OWN can't work.

National Geographic Channel moved into Discovery's neighborhood long after Discovery became a major force in documentaries, and has made a go of it, perhaps helped by the fact that the magazine National Geographic virtually owned this market with its historical/nature content for decades

So if OWN is spending a bit more than previously forecast, all that makes sense.

Perhaps there's another reason to be more cautious, though: The network's namesake Oprah Winfrey herself can't appear on OWN until fall 2011, after her daytime syndicated show comes to an end.