Editor's note: David Bianculli is founder and editor of tvworthwatching.com. He's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and teaches TV and film history at Rowan University in New Jersey.
(CNN) -- The biggest problem with the January 1, 2011, cable launch of Oprah Winfrey Network is timing -- not that starting with the New Year was a bad idea, or that rolling out new series and sneak previews on a piecemeal basis was a bad way to go.
It's just that for most of the year, the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN, will have to compete for attention with an unavoidable, unbeatable force: Oprah Winfrey -- rolling out the go-for-broke final season of her syndicated quarter-century TV juggernaut, "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
Even one of her new programs for OWN -- which Winfrey's Harpo Productions co-owns with Discovery Communications -- makes that conflict clear. On the new show "Oprah Behind the Scenes: Season 25," which promotes Winfrey's syndicated show by turning it into a simultaneous reality show and sneak preview, Oprah instructs her producers, "This season has to be ... the most connected we have ever been to our audience."
So the season opens, in syndication, by giving every audience member a free trip to Australia. And that's just for starters. When that's happening weekday afternoons on local TV stations, it's tough to get too excited about a new recipe for salmon meatloaf on OWN.
Had Oprah Winfrey rolled out her Cal Ripken-type season-long farewell tour this year as she's doing it, but delayed the start of her OWN cable network until the first day of 2012, she might have steered all that momentum and media attention to her new cable venture, rather than competed with it directly.
But when it comes to Oprah, few of the ordinary common-sense rules apply. The rest of the media will pay attention to her anyway -- and sooner or later, OWN will stand on its own. Well, on its own except for her magazine, the cover of which she graces each month, and her satellite radio network, and all the other parts of her branded empire, which makes Donald Trump look shy.
To be sure, retiring with a splash is what stars and their TV programs do. Retiring and staying retired, that's another thing.
Johnny Carson did it -- starred in a dominant TV program for 30 years, then waved goodbye and stayed away from the media spotlight until he died. But who else? Jay Leno certainly didn't stay retired. He's back where he was.
With Oprah Winfrey, at the same time she's waving goodbye with one hand, she is waving hello to her new cable audience with the other. In this case, the left hand definitely knows what the right hand is doing. But in this particular pop-culture yin and yang, the slow farewell of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" far outshines the birth of Oprah Winfrey Network.
That said, what sort of first impression has television's newest cable and satellite network served up? A mixed bag -- with, somewhat predictably, mixed results.
Three-year-old installments of Dr. Phil, recycled in prime time, do nothing to impress. Daytime cooking shows, especially those in which both the meals and hosts are intentionally casual and amateurish, are equal wastes of time. But with a 24-hour network, calling something a waste of time isn't necessarily an insult. Every half hour of OWN has to show something, and some things will be better than others.
Some shows on OWN haven't yet premiered: Oprah's best friend Gayle King's radio show gets an OWN TV simulcast of sorts starting Monday, and a reality-show contest to find the next host of an OWN show begins Friday. That's one way to build an audience: Bribe it. Why not watch the network, if one day you can star on it?
But the first sneak preview of "Oprah Presents Master Class," a biographical profile of Jay-Z, was solid and interesting, and the "Oprah Behind the Scenes: Season 25," on the planning and execution of show's absurdly over-the-top final-season premiere, was the best single program shown on OWN its first few days of operation.
But for shows that don't have Oprah, the offerings on OWN are like those on many other cable networks, except they're less mean-spirited. Good thing that cable networks aren't measured by the same audience-measurement standards as daytime talk shows.
And good thing that wherever Oprah Winfrey decides to pilot her new network, it won't be landing anywhere near the odiousness of "Jersey Shore."
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Bianculli.
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