Oprah Winfrey was a guest on CBS This Morning on Monday, and
the conversation with co-hosts Gayle King and Charlie Rode focused her
struggling cable network, OWN.
Winfrey said that creating a network was something she
always wanted to do, but candidly added, "Had I known it was this difficult, I
might have done something else."
She also said if she had known then what she knew now she
would have made some different choices, chiefly waiting until after she ended
The Oprah Winfrey Show to launch the network.
OWN has been getting a lot of negative press recently thanks
to the cancellation of Rosie O'Donnell's four-month-old talk show
and laying off 30 employees.
Winfrey says she mostly ignores the press, though admitted,
"Last week I saw one headline that really knocked me off-center." (It was 'Oprah
Not Quite Standing On Her Own' from USA Today). She remains optimistic about the
channel's future, however.
"I feel better about our network OWN today than I ever
have," she said. "Our strategy is to do what we should have done at the
beginning, and that is to build one show, one hour at a time, and then move to
the next night."
