CEO Christina Norman Fired At Oprah's OWN Network

Christina Norman, left, with Oprah Winfrey and David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery Communications, celebrating the start of OWN on Jan. 1, 2011. Ms. Norman is exiting the channel.RedTracker| Dissatisfied by poor ratings and difficulty finding OWN in the cable listings, Oprah Winfrey and her business partner Discovery Communications have fired Christiana Norman. Peter Liguori, COO of Discovery Communications will take over OWN through the end of the year. He will manage the introduction of network’s two most anticipated programs, one featuring Oprah Winfrey and the other Rosie O’Donnell.

On a total day basis, OWN is barely outperforming the channel it replaced, Discovery Health, despite hundreds of million of dollars of investment, reports the NYTimes.

Interviewed by Entertainment Weekly, Oprah says that in retrospect, perhaps she should have waited for the end of her current show to launch OWN.

I feel like I have not begun to give anything to OWN. I was on the phone yesterday with the head of OWN probably for 20 minutes, and then I was on another phone call for an hour, so I probably gave OWN and hour and 20 minutes yesterday. Not enough. Not enough. And I hadn’t talked to anybody for two or three days there. Doing this right and ending [Oprah] this the way is a full-time job. And the magazine is a full-time job, but that’s its own machine now. I don’t have to a lot with that anymore. But I still have to check in, approve things. I wouldn’t even say 10 percent of my time is on OWN right now. But it will be. [After the end of Oprah] I can start to give my attention to OWN that it deserves. Its going to improve exponentially with the amount of time and service I can give to it.

Asked by EW if her ‘Oprah, Behind the Scenes’ Show edits materials, she answered rarely but admit that some materials was edited from the show focused on Jennifer Hudson’s no-show appearance, due to a weather delay in Texas.  Here’s a peak preview of that segment, already broadcast on OWN:

OWN|Season 25: Oprah, Behind the Scenes