It’s no secret that, until recently, OWN was hurting to
find an audience and in a new interview for New York Magazine, Oprah Winfrey candidly talks about the struggles
to make OWN a success, saying that
the main problem was the network was “too serious.”

She eventually realized that she had to bring in more
humorous, lighter fare to attract an audience.

As she says in the interview:

“I
have a tendency to look at everything from the point of view of: What is going
to be meaningful, and uplift people? That can become too stoic and too
serious—which is the same issue I suffered with at the magazine in the
beginning. It needed more humor. So we [began] looking for lighter fare.
Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s works. Iyanla: Fix My Life was also a turning point.
Having programming that was in alignment with the vision but also left the
space to widen the lane for the vision”

However, she does have limits. There are certain things
that she will never do on the network:

“I’m
interested in doing no harm. Before, it was always, I’ve got to uplift as well
as entertain. And now I can look at a thing and say, “What harm does it do?”
And harm is not just violence and calling people bitches. It’s the tone of
things”.

You can read the entire and rather extensive interview
HERE.