Martha Stewart Viewers Slip to Fewer than 200,000 on Hallmark Channel

If you're a female public figure, it's embarrassing when your slip shows. It can also be embarrassing when your show slips. That seems to be what's happening to lifestyle goddess Martha Stewart. The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this week that Stewart's effort to take over much of the Hallmark Channel has had a rough launch:

"The Martha Stewart Show" averaged fewer than 200,000 viewers [in its first month] — less than half the audience of reruns of "The Golden Girls," which ran in the same time slot on Hallmark a year ago. A talk show co-hosted by Stewart's daughter, Alexis, attracted even fewer viewers, and a cooking show starring Martha Stewart Living's executive food editor Lucinda Scala Quinn didn't fare much better. In its annual report, filed in March, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia suggested that reduced ratings could make it "economically inefficient" to continue to produce "The Martha Stewart Show."
Combined with the poor performance of the company's stock, it's enough to make you wonder if Martha Stewart is still a good thing.
Stewart's title is "Founder and Chief Editorial, Media and Content Officer." She's richly rewarded for her service: All-in, she received compensation of $9.7 million in 2009, and more than $18 million in the past three years. Stewart controls about 28.4 million shares of the company's stock (about 50 percent), worth well over $100 million at today's prices. An entity she controls also gets a $2 million annual fee "for the perpetual, exclusive right to use Ms. Stewart's lifestyle intangible asset in connection with Company products and services and to access various real properties owned by Ms. Stewart."