18.5 Million Viewers Find OWN In Launch Week

New network is 25^th among cable nets in primetime

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/11/2011 1:51:06 PM

The final ratings for OWN's launch week were released Tuesday, showing that 18.5 million viewers tuned in to the new Oprah Winfrey Network Jan. 1-7, the time period for which cumulative data was available.

For the full week of Jan. 1-9, OWN ranked 25^th in primetime among ad-supported cable networks with an average .55 household rating and 505,000 total viewers.

For the total day during launch week, OWN ranked 28^th among the ad-supported cable nets, averaging a .27 household rating and 239,000 viewers.

Compared to the former Discovery Health network, which OWN replaced, it's up in viewers 49% in prime and 56% in total day from a year ago.

The network also notes it had 2 million unique visitors to the OWN section of Oprah.com.