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Oprah stopped by CBS This Morning and talked about her difficulties launching her OWN Network. Oprah recently had to layoff 30 people from her network. She even admitted she wouldn’t have launched the network had she known how difficult it would have been.
According to ET online,
“The idea of creating a network was something that I wanted to do. Had I known that it was this difficult, I might have done something else,” Winfrey said on Monday’s CBS This Morning.
“If I knew then what I know now, I might have made different choices. If I were writing a book about it, I could call the book 101 Mistakes.”
Winfrey said that among the mistakes was launching before the network was truly ready. “It’s like, having the wedding when you know you’re not ready. And you’re walking down the aisle and you’re saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know if we should be walking down the aisle. Maybe we should have postponed this. I would have probably waited until I actually finished The Oprah Show.”
OWN has recently been the subject of negative press after announcing the cancellation of Rosie O’Donnell’s show and laying off 30 employees and Winfrey said the negative headlines affected her, but also gave her new resolve to move forward. “You know, it’s just press… You know, because a thing appears to not be doing well, and I’d like to say this to everybody: because you failed at something, which we haven’t failed, but just because you fail doesn’t make you a failure. When you know that in the core of yourself, you can keep trying or you can use whatever is happening in that moment to say, ‘Maybe I need to move in a new direction.'”
When asked whether she would consider leaving television, Winfrey said there’s not a chance. “I believe that I am here to fulfill a calling. That because I am a female who is African American, who has been so blessed in the world, there’s never going to be a time to quit. I will die in the midst of doing what I love to do. And that is, using my voice and using my life to try to inspire other people to live the best of theirs.”
Photo from PR Photos
