Stop the presses, everyone- Oprah is not vomiting rainbows right now!
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey- who is, among other things, a bit prone to bursts of irritating optimism- has had a bit of difficulty transitioning from her mega successful talk show to her new network, OWN. The inspiration and happy thoughts junkie has been trying to strike out on her OWN (heh, heh) for a while now, and while things haven’t been terrible, it hasn’t been a stunning success for the previously teflon media personality.
But Oprah not only realizes this, she says that she feels it’s still possible to turn OWN around and make it a success. The media mogul says looking back, there are things she would change- but that she learned from them:
“Yes, some mistakes were made. Who hasn’t made mistakes? The real beauty is you can say, ‘I learned from that. I don’t worry about failure. I worry about, ‘Did I do all I could do?’”
Winfrey acknowledges there has been some negative buzz, but she says many who went before her have assured her that building a successful network takes time. Oprah explains:
“Everybody has told me- Ted Turner has told me, Barry Diller has told me, Lorne Michaels has told me, David Geffen has told me- anybody who’s ever worked with a channel, who’s ever done anything, has said it takes three to five year. You have to do the work… You do not have to pay attention to the criticism.”
You can read more of Oprah Winfrey’s comments on OWN in 2012 here.
