Oprah Winfrey on OWN: Launching a net is difficult
An unusually candid Oprah Winfrey told Charlie Rose and Gayle King this morning on CBS that launching the Oprah Winfrey Network was something she wanted to do but “had I known that it was this difficult, I might have done something else.”
“Really?” replied Rose on CBS This Morning. “If you knew it was going to be this difficult, you might have not done it?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Winfrey replied. “I didn’t think it was going to be easy, but I did not know…. If I knew then what I know now, I might have made some different choices.”
She went on to say that if she wrote a book about the experience, she would talk about how OWN wasn’t ready to launch at the time it did. “It’s like having the wedding when you know you’re not ready…. When I think about it now, now it’s Monday morning quarterbacking. I should have waited until I finished The Oprah Show. The thing I was most worried about was who is going to lead this train, because I can’t do it.”
OWN will meet with advertisers in New York to discuss the upcoming year. Launched in January 2011, OWN has already burned through more than $300 million, according to published reports. Analysts at SNL Kagan estimate that the fledgling cabler could lose $142.9 million this year.
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