The long-struggling Oprah Winfrey Network is on the road to profitability, according to co-owner Discovery Communications.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav told analysts during his company’s second-quarter earnings call that OWN is “starting to pay down the investment Discovery has made in the venture.” That investment is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

OWN has had a hard time finding a reliable audience, but has made strides recently by targeting more black viewers, particularly women, than it did when it debuted in 2011. In addition, OWN has been able to increase its fees from pay-TV distributors.

Read more at The Los Angeles Times.

Brief Take: OWN‘s recent success owes much to the success of producers Tyler Perry’s two sitcoms for the network, “The Have and Have Nots” and “Love Thy Neighbor” and he will continue to shape the channel’s identity for years to come. Perry agreed last fall to direct all his future television production to OWN, in exchange for a small equity stake in the channel.

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