In the case of Oprah, her flub came Thursday night when she aired the confessions of disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong. The interview was broadcast on her OWN cable network but also on the OWN website where blank silence filled the spaces where ads should have been. Media experts took to Twitter in surprise:

Remind me again: why are they not showing ads in the OWN online livestream? God forbid people watch ads for once?

— Rafat Ali (@rafat) January 18, 2013

kind of concerned, it wasn’t just one pod – it’s all the “commercial” breaks. dead air. OWNTV online needs sales help.ownspecial.oprah.com/lancearmstrong…

— Lora Kolodny (@lorakolodny) January 18, 2013

New York Times reporter Brian Stelter suggested the absence of ads could be tied to technical or licensing issues, while paidContent founder Rafat Ali concluded the reason was simply “incompetence.” Whatever the reason, it does appear that Oprah and her struggling OWNTV brand left a big pile of money on the table by playing a major scoop without ads. OWNTV did not respond to a request for comment.

Sports site Deadspin also experienced ad issues this week after it broke the mind-boggling story about how football star Manti Te’o's dead girlfriend — a beautiful Stanford co-ed with “the warm smile and soulful eyes” — was a creature of fiction. As Ad Age reports, the story attracted a record-breaking 3.5 million visitors Thursday night but Deadspin’s parent company, Gawker Media, didn’t have the ad inventory to capitalize on the flood of traffic. The missed opportunity is leading Gawker Media to explore technical solutions, such as a private exchange that lets advertisers bid in real time, for the next time it has a massive story like T’eo or explicit (NSFW) Brett Favre photos.

Internet scoops have been around for a decade, so why are publishers still having such a hard time figuring out the ad equation? Part of it is indeed technical. A massive traffic surge means publishers must match buyers and sellers on very short notice — although, in the case of both Oprah and Deadspin, the nature of the story meant the sites likely had weeks to prepare.

The technical side is one part of the explanation. Another relates to the nature of major news stories which often involve sordid or awful events, creating a risk for both publishers and advertisers — see the bloody t-shirt ad Fox ran during the Newtown shooting. Stephen Roy, a longtime ad man at Edelman who now works for Disqus, explained the situation well in an email to paidContent:

The challenge with monetizing risk-taking journalism is that many advertisers are likely to get squeamish with the association. Advertisers that could have afforded premium rates on Deadspin are also likely to have more brand reputation to lose if somehow the story went awry. They would be asking the advertiser to take the risk with them. And risk drives price down.

The good news for Deadspin, says Roy, is that the site may not be able to cash in right away on stories like the one about T’eo’s fake girlfriend, but that these stories increase the prestige of the publication which make it easier to sell ads in the future.

(Image by Fer Gregory via Shutterstock)

Oprah’s Book Club, which turned featured books into major bestsellers, is back after two years — with some improvements for the digital age: “This time it’s an interactive online book club for our digital world,” Oprah Winfrey said Friday.

Oprah’s first new selection is Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild,” published by Random House’s Knopf. Starting Monday at noon, “Oprah’s Book Club 2.0″ digital editions of “Wild” will be available, “with exclusive content including a reader’s guide and Oprah’s notes on her favorite passage,” will be available for Kindle, Nook, the iBookstore and in other digital bookstores.

The press release outlines the special ways that Oprah will promote “Strayed” — and, presumably, the books chosen after it — in the digital age:

• A series of webisodes featuring Oprah and Strayed will post weekly, progressing with readers as they read during the months of June and July.
• Readers will have the opportunity to answer weekly questions on Oprah.com with text or photo using Facebook and Twitter (using #oprahsbookclub). Readers will also submit questions about Wild. Oprah and Strayed will answer via video responses each week, and real-time updates will be featured on Oprah.com.
• Using Storify, Oprah.com will highlight reader tweets, Instagram photos and Facebook posts that will be curated into a social wrap up that will live on Oprah.com, providing readers with a snapshot of what participants are thinking, feeling and sharing as they read Wild together.
• Starting June 28, a map display on Oprah.com will allow readers to locate other Book Club participants around the world.
• Using the mobile messaging application GroupMe, Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 will have a section where readers can create smaller book clubs with their friends to have discussion groups about the book club selections.

Oprah chose 70 titles for her original book club before ending it in 2010. Her selections included classics like “Anna Karenina” as well as debut novelists like Uwek Apken’s “Say You’re One of Them” and David Wroblewski’s “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.” When an author was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club, it was a near-guarantee that his or her book would rise to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

In addition to all the webisoding and Instagraming this time around, there is another difference: Oprah no longer has a talk show on network television. She will promote the Book Club 2.0 titles on her cable network, OWN; on Oprah.com; and in “O” Magazine (which — coincidentally? — just lost its books editor, Sara Nelson, to Amazon). It is unclear whether the book club will be as successful without Oprah promoting the books on network TV, but the obvious hope is that the Internet will make up for it. The fact is that since the original book club ended, nothing nearly as influential has emerged to replace it. So book publishers are happy today. (I wonder how long it is before Oprah chooses a self-published book as one of her selections.)

Oh, and add this to the list of things that people will be talking about at BEA next week.

The “Reuters and Klout 50” ranks CEOs by Klout score, but mostly by who is most active on Twitter. The rules: “To make the list the user has to be a CEO, active on Twitter, tweeting in English, and have their own handle separate from their company’s (sorry @zappos).” The top three “most influential execs on the web” are Mashable’s Pete Cashmore (with a Klout score of 89), Oprah Winfrey (81), and Rupert Murdoch (80). Others in the top 10 include Square CEO Jack Dorsey and Carnival CEO Micky Arison.

At the top of the page is “The Hit List,” links to stories “being talked about by the newsmakers we follow.” “The more a story is shared on Twitter by these influencers the more likely it is to appear here,” the site explains.

“The Conversation” curates journalist tweets — and is supposed to “track social-media spats and chats between two Twitter parties,” though the storyline at this point is hard to follow — and “Reuters Bloggers & Reporters” features Reuters journalist tweets.

Overall, the site’s reliance on Twitter as penultimate social gauge seems somewhat limiting, with other sources — stories read and shared across Facebook, for instance, as well as stories trending on blogs and other news sites — not included. (You can see the stories shared on Facebook by your friends but not more broadly in the “business community” this site is aimed at.) “It’s not simply about how customers view a particular company, but how everyone engaged in the social realm views that company,” said Reuters’ director of news product Alex Leo in a statement. Or at least how much they tweet about it.

The prediction was delivered by David Carey, president of Hearst, during the Reuters (NYSE: TRI) Global Media Summit today. Currently, Hearst has close to 400,000 digital subscribers covering its portfolio of magazines, which include Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar and O. The number of subscribers is growing at a rate of 10-15 percent every month, Carey added.

He did not break out, however, how well individual titles are doing, or how those subscriptions break down by region: Hearst publishes in multiple countries, including the U.S. and UK.

While some publishers like the FT are investing now in developing web-based apps for their content, Hearst has chosen to take the native app route, and offers paid subscriptions for the iPad, the Kindle Fire and the Nook. While its editions keep a lot of the look of the printed magazines, the apps, which are made by Pixel Mags, also incorporate some of the bells and whistles you get with digital apps, such as video and interactive elements.

The prices Hearst charges for apps are separate to those it charges for print subscriptions — something that has raised the ire of at least some print subscribers, judging by the comments from app reviewers in the iTunes store. The apps are free to download and then users can buy either single editions or longer subscriptions using in-app purchasing options.

Subscriptions, however, will not be the only revenue stream Hearst is developing for these apps: there is also advertising, which could become more targeted to specific readers over time: Carey today also noted that on the iPad, some 60-65 percent of subscribers have opted in to share personal data such as location with the publisher.

Hearst may be one of the first big publishers to come out with a million-subscriber prediction for its magazine app portfolio, but it probably won’t be the only one reaching that tipping point: in September Conde Nast said it already had 500,000 subscribers to its apps, at a time when Hearst was only reporting 300,000. Their number will likely be growing, too.

Michelle Shih, O Director of Digital Editions & Lifestyle, noted that the app doesn’t lead to featured titles in the iBookstore because that format doesn’t allow in-app purchasing.

Some of the books with excerpts available to read on the iPad include Erik Larson’s bestselling nonfiction title In The Garden Of Beasts; Monica Ali’s Princess Diana-inspired novel Untold Story; and Robert Olen Butler’s romantic novel A Small Hotel.

The reading list also features book recommendations by format, telling readers which books read best on the iPad versus print.

Of course, readers can already read free excerpts of many of these books online–with first chapters available free through Kindle, for instance. But it’s easier to read excerpts from a curated list already in front of you on an iPad, and it could be the extra inducement readers need to buy. O had already provided excerpts and in-app purchasing for books featured in the “Reading Room” and “Books That Make a Difference” columns, and every book included in the August issue will include an iPad excerpt.

July also marks the first month that the iPad edition of O is available as a subscription (along with other Hearst titles, Popular Mechanics and Esquire). An individual issue is $3.99; a subscription is $19.99/year or $1.99/month.

The move is being spun as a switch from launch to execution, with an effort not to make it look like the highly regarded Norman is being replaced by Liguori. Norman was recommended by Tom Freston, her former boss at Viacom (NYSE: VIA), who has been an adviser on the new network. She came on
in early 2009, joining a project that already had seen some turnover and that encounter more. Last month, distribution head Alan Singer left to head programming for Charter (NSDQ: CHTR) Communications.

Former Fox exec Liguori came in late in the process, joining Discovery at the end of 2009, nearly a year after Norman. His involvement with OWN was expected, particularly given his strengths in growing new channels with FX as the prime example. The company says his immediate takeover of the network reflects a “more long-term focus on business and creative strategy, development and execution.”

Does it also reflect a power shift? Winfrey remains chairman but where Norman reported to her and the OWN board, Liguori keeps his day job as COO of Discovery Networks.

More to come.
——————————–

PETER LIGUORI NAMED *INTERIM* CEO OF OWN: OPRAH WINFREY NETWORK

Discovery Communications’ Chief Operating Officer adds OWN Leadership Responsibilities Following Departure of Christina Norman

Los Angeles, CA and Silver Spring, MD – Peter Liguori has been named Interim Chief Executive Officer of OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, it was announced today by Oprah Winfrey, Chairman of OWN, and David Zaslav, President and CEO of Discovery Communications. The appointment reflects a transition from a launch phase to a more long-term focus on business and creative strategy, development and execution following the network’s debut on January 1, 2011.

Effective immediately, Liguori steps into the role held by Christina Norman, who led the successful launch of the multi-platform joint venture. In addition to his Chief Operating Officer (COO) responsibilities for Discovery Communications, Liguori will oversee the network as it continues building a slate of new and original content, including the October debut of Rosie O’Donnell’s new talk show ROSIE and the launch of OPRAH’S NEXT CHAPTER in early 2012.

“I want to thank Christina for her important accomplishments, incredible passion and many sacrifices in helping to launch the network,” said Winfrey. “With the final taping of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” only a few weeks away, I will soon be able to devote my full energies to OWN. This is a natural point of transition, and I am confident that Peter, as an integral part of the launch of OWN, will be a terrific partner for me going forward. He is one of the smartest, most creative executives in media, and I look forward to his leadership as we build our development slate and work toward the launch of OPRAH’S NEXT CHAPTER. Over the remainder of the year, Peter and I will work together to recruit a permanent CEO for OWN’s next phase of growth.”

“Joining OWN was a great opportunity, and launching it successfully and drawing more than 67 million viewers is one of my proudest achievements,” said Norman. “My thanks to Oprah and David for entrusting me with this brand and giving me the opportunity to launch OWN. As I move on to my next challenge, I am confident the strong foundation we have built will position the network to achieve great things.”

“Peter is Discovery’s creative leader, and highly qualified to assume the leadership at OWN for the next phase of growth,” said Zaslav. “Christina did a great job launching OWN with long-term support from both advertising and affiliate partners. Peter will now ensure that OWN reaches its full creative potential with great programming that delivers on Oprah’s vision, mission and brand.”

OWN debuted on January 1, 2011, and delivered double digit primetime increases across all key demos vs. Discovery Health a year ago for 1Q. Strong performing series include SEASON 25: OPRAH BEHIND THE SCENES, OUR AMERICA WITH LISA LING and THE JUDDS. Key upcoming series debuts include WHY NOT? WITH SHANIA TWAIN and FINDING SARAH, with the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson.
Among his primary responsibilities as Discovery’s COO, Liguori oversees Discovery’s interests in its joint venture channels, The Hub, 3net and OWN, as well as providing leadership for the company’s operational organizations, including Marketing, Discovery Studios, Corporate Communications and Corporate Affairs, Business Affairs, Research, Digital Media and Commerce, and Media Technology, Production and Operations. In addition to his operational role, he also oversees Discovery’s cross-company global Creative Council with a focus on maximizing the value of the company’s content, marketing resources and overall corporate assets.

Before joining Discovery in 2009, Liguori most recently served as president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting Company, where he was responsible for all Fox program development and marketing. Prior to assuming that position in 2005, Liguori was president and CEO of News Corp.’s FX Networks since 1998, overseeing business and programming operations for FX and Fox Movie Channel. Under his leadership, over a five-year period, FX grew from an emerging network reaching 39 million homes to a top-five basic cable network reaching more than 84 million homes and recording all-time highs in ratings and revenue.

Liguori joined Fox/Liberty Networks in 1996 as Senior Vice President, Marketing for a new joint venture, which now includes Fox Sports Net, FX, Fox Sports World, SPEED and National Geographic Channel. Prior to joining Fox, Liguori was Vice President, Consumer Marketing at HBO. He also held several positions in HBO’s Home Video Division, including Vice President, Marketing and Senior Vice President, Marketing, where his duties included the creation and implementation of marketing programs for all HBO Home Video product expansion and the development of its programming line-up.

Liguori also has experience as a producer of the widely acclaimed independent feature film, “Big Night.” Prior to HBO, he worked in advertising at Ogilvy & Mather and Saatchi & Saatchi.

For much of the time since Flipboard captured imaginations with its July 2010 launch, the company has worked with publishers on an exploratory basis, hoping to show them its value while it evolved as an app and a business model. “We’re part of the way there,” says McCue. “We’re certainly beyond the initial trial phase. We’ve learned a lot but we’re still not quite at the point where revenue’s changing hands and we have a fully articulated model.”

At the same time, Flipboard’s user base has been evolving. When it first started, a lot of subscribers — heavy on early adopters — opted for the tech feed, not that many for fashion or style. Now, says McCue, it’s “pretty much 50-50″ and has been changing rapidly since the iPad 2 launched last month. “We’ve been seeing this accelerating trend to a much broader demographic.”

That’s one reason the timing is right for the deal with Oprah, which gives OWN front-page space. The only other dedicated space with fresh installs goes to Twitter and Facebook. Users can customize the app to drop any of the three or move them to the next page but that it’s there at all has particular meaning. Not only does Oprah, an iPad enthusiast, personally like Flipboard — “it means that we’re finally getting past the typical early adopter crowd, much more of a mainstream business, more of a mainstream audience,” says McCue.

As for OWN, the launch was tied to today’s Discovery upfront and the new network’s programming announcements. It’s not the first iPad app for Oprah; Hearst already has one for O, The Oprah Magazine . Flipboard’s social media aspects make it very different. The section is built with Flipboard’s own publishing tools, allowing an in-app glossy feel, but the flow of content is based on Twitter lists. That means when Oprah goes on Sunday night tweet toots, has she has the past couple of weeks, the conversation can become part of the app instantly. It also makes it possible to weave in the various people, shows and topics that are part of OWN. Her Farewell Countdown Videos will launch exclusively on Flipboard along with Oprah.com.

How it works: Current Flipboard users will get a message about an update being available; once that is installed, their opening screen will be based on their customized selection but when they flip the page, they’ll get a full-page letter from McCue about the new content and how to “add Oprah to your Flipboard.” Adding Oprah put the section on my second page in the last position, so didn’t displace anything I already had or jump in line.

Not all about Oprah: It’s a bit overshadowed by Oprah but the rest of the Flipboard update may be more important in the long run. As the demos go more mainstream, McCue and his team think they see a need for more bundling. The first wave of geeks (self included) wanted to personalize their reading, New adopters want more served to them when they start using the app and many may not want to do much more beyond picking sections that Flipboard curates.

This update includes new sections for News and Lifestyle from a select group of sources; news sources include The Atlantic Wire, Fox News, ABC (NYSE: DIS) News, CNN, The New Yorker. It almost seems too narrow at first. Personally, I don’t have a problem with Flipboard making deals for branded sections like Oprah or branded pages that get highlighted in its menu but I would have an issue if I found out it was selling slots in sections like this or giving preference without making it clear.

Not Zite: Newcomer Zite has been compared to Flipboard as a news aggregation iPad app but McCue insists the two are very different in their approaches to publishers and content. A batch of publishers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Zite last month, demanding that it stop showing their stories in different formats and stripping ads. Flipboard got some brushback for making it possible to see a publisher’s content in Flipboard rather than its own app but has worked to upgrade the way it shows content and to make original web pages accessible. When it draws from an RSS feed, posts or stories are formatted in Flipboard’s style with a link to the story on the website. When the story comes from a link in Twitter or Facebook, it shows up in Flipboard format with the original web page loading at the same time below it, complete with ads.

McCue: “We have from the very beginning wanted to build a company very much in line with what publishers wanted. That’s been built into our DNA from the get go. We would never imagine being like Zite, where they strip out all the ads, reformat all the content.”

If naming the iPad her No. 1 “favorite thing ever” last year wasn’t enough to send cash registers ringing at Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) stores, surely this exchange she had with Hammer will do that all over again and then some.

Winfrey: “I hear you love your iPad as much as I do. Is it not an incredible invention?”
Hammer: “It’s the best, the best, iPad changes everything. It’s unbelievable.”
Winfrey: “You would say it’s one of the best inventions of our time?”

From there, Hammer segued into an on-stage demonstration of Zaggmate, a case that not only protects the iPad from breaking should it fall, but allows it to be transformed into a wireless keyboard. It’s probably safe to say the plug is even bigger for manufacturer Zagg than winning best in show at Macworld earlier this year.

Perhaps the heavy promotion should have been expected given the rapper has been trying to reinvent himself in recent years as a Silicon Valley guru. To prove his tech bona fides to Winfrey’s audience, Hammer is seen in a pretaped segment (check out the video) visiting the headquarters of Flipboard and CEO Mike McCue. The already buzz-worthy app not only gets a demonstration, but Hammer promoted his own marketing tie-in in which he premieres a new track that has its own gallery on Flipboard.

Hammer also goes on and on about his social-media prowess, and in case you doubt him, he drops founder Jack Dorsey’s name. No doubt Dorsey and a lot of other people in Silicon Valley tonight are going to be checking their traffic and sales figures in the next few days to see if they felt the Oprah magic.

This latest Hearst iPad app release is part of the publisher’s wider app rollout. Currently, Hearst Magazines working on rolling out 22 apps. It currently has all 14 of its mag titles, including Esquire, Cosmopolitan> and Seventeen available as paid digital replicas through the Zinio online storefront on the iPad since the Apple device was released in April.

“We wanted to capture Oprah’s personality in a different way, since the iPad is different from the magazine and the TV show,” said editor Susan Casey. “There is no need to repurpose or do the exact same thing over and over again.”

With that in mind, the individual titles have been fairly free to experiment with the app format. The Oprah mag app sells for $3.99 per issue download — slightly cheaper than print version’s newsstand price. While it contains a lot of the usual bells and whistles associated with iPad mag apps — there are three videos, all featuring Oprah — this app has aimed to be a little more web-like in terms of its social sharing features than a number of other magazine releases.

Things are particularly interesting on the marketing end. While a lot of apps aim to place every single print add in the digital version, only two ads have made it into the Oprah mag app: Disney (NYSE: DIS), which is making its first advertising appearance in an app with this placement, and Lexus. The next app issue might have three, but Oprah mag execs want to keep the apps’ ad space premium and uncluttered, said Michelle Shih, director of digital editions and lifestyle, in a demo of the mag app last week at Hearst Tower.

That largely ad-free environment makes it easier to pick up on the promotional features that are part of the mag app’s content. There’s a “12-Day Holiday Give-O-Way” sweepstakes, which app users can enter each day for nearly two weeks (it’s also available in print and online, but there’s a little more work involved) and a holiday gift guide that has 70 items to choose from. The items all come with three choices: users can pick “favorite” and save it for later, or they can hit a “share” button, and lastly they can simply click “buy.”

There’s also an interactive bookstore where readers can peruse first chapters and buy e-books within the app. However to read it, you have to go outside the app’s digital walls, since it didn’t make sense to keep book purchases within the app’s virtual shelf.

For now at least, the Oprah team is just going to concentrate on the iPad app, along with versions for other tablets later on. But don’t expect a version for the iPhone any time soon, as editors and execs feel the magazine experience on that screen is just too constrained.

I asked Casey if the new app will greatly influence the production of the magazine. “In some ways, it will, since we’ll be making video and behind the scenes of every photo shoot we do from here on in,” she said. “But in other ways, I don’t think so. The print and digital versions are related in very obvious ways. But in meetings, we’re not just coming up with ideas for what can we do that will work for the magazine and the app equally. Many of us are coming up with ideas just for the app, because we can go much deeper there. That’s really the point.”

Viewers of her daytime talk show may have been surprised Wednesday when Winfrey used Cisco’s “telepresence” device to conduct an out-of-studio interview instead of her customary choice, Skype. It won’t be the last time Umi will be on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” either, as part of a deal with Cisco.

But before she inevitably gives every member of her studio audience an Umi, she might want to note the product has gotten a pretty icy reception that may make turn it into this year’s tech Edsel.

For starters, there’s the price tag: $599, which doesn’t include a $25 monthly subscription fee. Is Winfrey really going to pitch a product that outrageously expense to a country in no economic shape for that kind of luxury good? Then there’s the fact that Umi comes in four separate pieces, which isn’t going to be embraced in American living rooms already overrun with unused remote controls and TV sets encumbered by one too many boxes.

It’s a shame because Winfrey has been a real friend to the technology world going back to 2003, when a little device called the Blackberry got an on-air plug credited with helping RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) hit critical mass. When it comes to taking gizmos from early-adopter phase to soccer-mom embrace, her imprimatur is what Advertising Age once called the “pinnacle of product publicity.” She’s devoted entire episodes to showcasing YouTube, Twitter and Skype.

Of course, her relationship with Skype has extended far beyond one episode; there may be no brand on earth that has gotten such consistent product placement on Winfrey’s show in recent years. And that presents an interesting wrinkle to this Umi endorsement: Does it make it all the more powerful a plug that Winfrey is throwing aside her steady technology favorite to have a fling with a new love, or will the price comparison with the profoundly cheaper Skype make it seem all the more ridiculous?

Maybe Skype should have seen this coming. The software has been criticized for being buggy even on Oprah’s show, and Oprah.com has been littered with negative comments criticizing the service’s quality. So this could cut both ways, Cisco: Be careful what you wish for.

UPDATE: A spokeswoman for Skype clarified that her company’s partnership with “Oprah” actually concluded at the end of the previous season of her show, though Winfrey is free to continue using the service on air if she chooses. “We are extremely proud of what we accomplished together and wish Oprah and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” the very best in their farewell season.”