For almost one year, the Oprah Winfrey Network has been working on programming and trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t.  As OWN Experts, we are here to tell you that only one thing needs to be on the OWN Christmas list this year…CHEER.  Not that we don’t love and appreciate the poignant documentaries that inspire and teach us.  Not that we don’t appreciate the family drama in the docu-series specials.  We still want those, but the slot that’s missing is the joy and the cheer.  All of the extra borrowed filler and fluff shows to fill the spots is not fluff at all.  A lot is weighted in darkness and while I know the world can be dark, I’m looking for some lightness and inspiration MORE than I am looking for the dark.  Someone from OWN will read this.  Please consider this a whisper …an OWN whisper.

OWN’s potential is phenomenal…but don’t turn away from what you know.  Happiness.  Go with it.  OWN has all the potential to be the Oprah Winfrey Show + O Magazine + Oprah…all in a cable network.  What we have seen are programs that are not always that.  Go back to basics.  Go back to the Oprah Winfrey Show brainstorming sessions when you were planning out each season.  What did those shows look like?  What did those ratings for each of the shows look like?  Then, from the higher rated shows find the kind of series that you need on OWN.  You don’t need Oprah to adorn every hour, every moment of the day…but you need the love and vision that was put into each one of those shows to shine on the network.  A mixture of fun, happy, inspiration, crazy, superstar, rising star, news topics, and more…  Bring us 24 hours of the programming that inspired the Oprah Winfrey Show for 25 years and the world will bring you your OWN audience.