OWN President Tina Perry: Brand First, Channel Second

OWN has launched two short-form creator programs — "Dating Download" and "Glow Up at Five" — that exist solely on YouTube and social platforms and will never air on linear TV, network president Tina Perry confirmed in a new interview with Streamified.

The move is part of a broader strategic shift Perry describes as thinking of OWN as "a brand" that happens to have a linear channel, rather than a TV network with digital extensions. "It's not just networks anymore or channels," Perry said. "Seventeen years ago, I don't think we thought about it in that way when you worked in TV."

Perry, who joined the company in 2009 and will be honored at the 2026 Cynopsis Top Women in Media Awards Gala on November 4 in New York City, framed brand identity and the rise of streaming as the two biggest industry changes of her tenure. Streaming, she argued, has democratized content production — more types of creators can tell stories, and audiences can afford to be far more selective about what they watch.

What does the YouTube bet change for OWN's audience strategy?

The two new short-form shows are explicitly a play for younger and new audiences that OWN's linear schedule doesn't reach. Perry said both have had "great successes," though she offered no specific viewership figures.

Her YouTube focus dates back roughly six years. At the time, OWN's social teams concentrated mostly on Facebook, with some Instagram, but Perry pushed for YouTube after data showed African American audiences over-indexed on the platform. She now builds a year-long YouTube strategy with her team, reviewing priorities quarter by quarter. The result: OWN's YouTube channel is now "one of the top Black YouTube platforms in their larger ecosystem," according to Perry, citing repeated feedback from YouTube itself — a claim that reflects the platform's own ranking rather than third-party measurement.

Microdramas: watching, not jumping

Despite the current microdrama boom (short, vertical episodic video), Perry is holding back. "Microdramas are incredibly interesting and it's a space I'm watching closely," she said, adding that the research "hasn't confirmed anything for me completely yet."

Her open question: whether viewers over 30 engage with the format as deeply as younger audiences do, and whether microdramas belong on streamers and linear at all — or are fundamentally "a social play or a YouTube play." She believes the format is probably here to stay but is still deconstructing the model before committing OWN resources.

Where AI fits — and where it doesn't

Perry positions OWN as "very AI-positive," seeing the technology as a cost-saving and enhancing tool rather than a creative replacement. "I don't see it as a threat, in the sense that I believe what our producers, story editors and showrunners do is really hard to replicate in a technological way," she said. The guardrail: AI must never "challenge the integrity of a creative project" or complicate what creators want to make.

A viewer profile built on everything

OWN identifies its audience through an annually refreshed viewer profile shared across the network — a detailed persona covering the core viewer's consumer habits, viewing behavior across all media, political leaning, and living situation (multifamily household versus living alone). That profile directly informs greenlight decisions.

Perry's advice to women starting media careers: build relationships deliberately — "they're not built overnight" — and stay intentional, a word Oprah Winfrey herself introduced to Perry when she became president. "One of the first conversations we had was about making sure we lead with intention with everything we do."

Expect OWN to keep weighting YouTube and social-first formats in the year ahead while Perry's microdrama research continues.