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Rosie O’Donnell’s OWN staffers blab about horrific experience
By April MacIntyre Mar 20, 2012, 4:21 GMT
The canceled Rosie O’Donnell Show on OWN has unleashed a tell-all avalanche of disgruntled staffers sharing their work nightmares.
The canceled Rosie O’Donnell Show on OWN has unleashed a tell-all avalanche of disgruntled staffers sharing their work nightmares.
The Daily Beast interviewed former staffers of The Rosie Show who were former Oprah employees in Chicago.
OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network issued a press release announcing The Rosie Show had been canceled over poor ratings.
The report claims that O’Donnell’s staff had been alerted of the decision only hours before.
The Beast writes: "Over a short TV life span, through countless reboots and hiatuses, the series had morphed from a delightful comedy hour that nonetheless premiered to weak ratings in the fall to a bleak, Larry King–style interview program with C-list guests like the cast of Dance Moms and Jaleel White. Through all the changes, some 30 employees from producers to writers had left because of budget cuts and possibly because of a boss who couldn’t decide what she wanted and frequently humiliated them in public. 'It was such a f*cking hellhole,' says one former staffer."
The sources claim O’Donnell was ratings poison on a poor network fit.
OWN programming Rosie in the 7 p.m. hour also reportedly hamstrung the show's success. The other reported negative was the show's location in Chicago, where celebrities would now have to fly “coach.” The Beast cited exchanges between publicists and Rosie that were strained at best and staffers caught in the middle of temper outbursts and production values that slid into local access television territory. In January, the executive who brought Rosie to OWN was gone.
Emmy winning Bandleader Katreese Barnes went on record with the Beast about his dismissal, saying, “I just think you can’t develop chemistry and get to know somebody without spending time with them... I didn’t spend enough time with her for her to know who I am, because my work speaks for itself. I’m not upset that I don’t know Into the Woods by heart. A little heads-up would have been nice.”
