More Oprah gives OWN a solid bump

Putting the Oprah back in Oprah Winfrey Network has proven to be a wise move.

The struggling cable channel logged its second straight quarter of substantial gains, which not coincidentally coincides with the return of Winfrey to a major TV hosting role.

Her new show, "Oprah's Next Chapter," which launched in January, continued to pace OWN's second-quarter ratings.

Part two of Winfrey's interview with the Kardashian family averaged 1.2 million total viewers on Sunday at 8 p.m., according to Nielsen, becoming the third-most-watched program in network history.

The other two most-watched shows were also "Chapter" episodes, one featuring Whitney Houston's family (3.5 million viewers) and the other featuring Pastor Joel Osteen (1.6 million viewers).

The show, Winfrey's first since retiring from syndication last year, ranked No. 1 on cable for the hour among women 25-54, women 18-49 and women 18-34.

"Chapter's" strong performance helped OWN to an 11 percent gain among total viewers in primetime during second quarter, to 291,000. It was up 10 percent among its target women 25-54.

The network also saw big gains in total-day average, up 25 percent in women 25-54 and 31 percent in total viewers.

OWN is still far from a success story, but the network is very slowly improving, and all of the credit is due to Winfrey, who took over as chief executive officer last year when the network was flailing.

She seems to have realized that the key to a network featuring her own name is more shows that actually include her, and "Chapter" is a good first step.

But Winfrey will need to continue to ramp up that presence in order to keep OWN's ratings growing and ensure advertisers are satisfied.

Meanwhile, OWN wasn't the only network with a strong quarter. Driven by record ratings for the miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys," History had its best quarter ever, up 14 percent in total viewers over last year.

A&E had its best-ever second quarter, as did The Hub and Disney XD, among other networks.

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