Discovery Communications budgeted $100 million for Oprah's new OWN network and have spent nearly all of it and the network doesn't even launch until 2011.
From the NY Post
Discovery Communications has said that the $100 million it set aside to launch Oprah Winfrey's OWN cable network in January isn't going to cut it anymore.
So far, Discovery has "spent $75 million . . . on investment in the Oprah Winfrey Network," Brad Singer, Discovery Communications Inc. CFO, said yesterday during the company's quarterly earnings conference call.
That's three-quarters of the contractual "maximum of $100 million that we're obligated to," he said.
With each delay of OWN's launch -- from 2009 to mid-2010 to January 2011 -- Discovery has had to crunch some numbers and figure out a whole new cost plan.
"We're in the process of revising that contract," Singer said. "[The budget] likely will go up . . . the cost to launch the network, it will be higher than we had originally contemplated."
He declined to specify what the new anticipated total cost will be. Still, Discovery is content with OWN, which it owns 50/50 with Winfrey.
