But what MSLO's merchandising segment giveth, the broadcasting segment taketh away. Or so the New York Post would have you believe in a Jan. 4 story under the headline "Martha losing show, Home Depot dumps paint." The story, citing poor ratings, has Hallmark Channel abandoning "The Martha Stewart Show" it has been carrying since the fall of 2010.

The unsourced assertion rattled investors enough to shave more than 4% off MSLO's stock price in Wednesday's generally upbeat trading session. It also moved MSLO president and COO Lisa Gersh to fire off a memo to staff. The memo not only denied claims of disharmony with Home Depot Inc., a relationship it called a "thriving partnership," but defended Stewart's flagship broadcast.

"The daytime block on Hallmark demonstrated year-over-year ratings growth, and 'The Martha Stewart Show' earned two Emmys in its first season," Gersh wrote. That's no small feat considering the show spent five years being syndicated by NBC to affiliate stations before aligning itself with Hallmark. And it doesn't take a programming whiz to appreciate the combined challenge of leaving a major network like NBC and asking fans of Stewart to relocate her among the hundreds of channels offered by their respective cable companies.

But here's the really eye-catching nugget in the Post's diatribe: "Handed the discouraging news, Martha's TV family is planning a lavish Oprah-style send off for the program." Why limit it to an Oprah-style sendoff? Why not make it an Oprah-style homecoming, too?

After all, before joining MSLO in May with assurances of advancing to CEO within 20 months, Gersh served as the president of Oxygen Media LLC until its acquisition in 2007 by NBC Universal Inc. She served NBCU too, helping it acquire the Weather Channel, among other strategic initiatives.

One of Gersh's fellow co-founders at Oxygen was none other than Oprah Winfrey, who now has her own network, OWN, in partnership with Discovery Communications Inc. This would seem to leave MSLO's broadcasting segment with not one but two promising alternatives -- Oxygen and OWN -- should Hallmark pull the plug or, more likely, should "The Martha Stewart Show" seek a channel higher on the dial.

Geoffrey Darby, whom Gersh recruited from the Weather Channel last September to serve as MSLO's general manager of television, would seem to agree. In an Adweek interview that same month, he said: "The more places we can put the Martha Stewart brand the better. ... OWN is more opportunity. What happens when you've filled five hours [on Hallmark]? Well then, OK, now let's go fill an hour somewhere else. And whether that somewhere else is on NBC or a syndicated property or on Oprah, that's all good."

It may even be better. As a longtime follower of MSLO says of Gersh, "Let's just say that, given what she did with the Oxygen Network, she has better options for that side of the business."