Discovery Communications will provide a free live video stream of Oprah Winfrey's exclusive interview with Lance Armstrong at Oprah.com of the two-night event airing on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network starting at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday.
In addition, Discovery is making the Internet stream
available to Comcast, DirecTV and Verizon, which will offer access to it on
their websites.
"Because it is such a huge event and so widely
anticipated, we offered it to our partners as a value-add," Discovery
spokeswoman Jenn Marburg said. "Comcast, DirecTV and Verizon will stream
it live on their sites and Charter is linking to oprah.com from theirs."
Winfrey's interview with Armstrong -- who is expected
to own up to using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career -- will
air in two
parts on OWN. The special episode of Oprah's Next Chapter will
air Thursday, Jan. 17, from 9 to 10:30 p.m. ET/PT and Friday, Jan. 18, at
9 p.m. ET/PT. The two-and-a-half-hour interview was taped in Austin, Texas, on
Monday.
Two-year-old OWN has struggled to win viewers after Winfrey
left her long-running daytime talk show to launch the cable network in a joint
venture with Discovery. Discovery expects OWN to breakeven in the second half of 2013.
