News broke Wednesday that Oprah Winfrey has appointed herself CEO and Chief Creative Officer at the Oprah Winfrey Network. Thursday, 'The Early Show' (weekdays, 7AM on CBS) took a look at the nascent network and the problems its run into since launching. According tot he report, OWN is averaging 267,000 viewers in prime time viewing hours, an improvement of just 12,000 viewers over Discovery Health, the network it displaced.

For someone used to dominating television in syndication, the numbers have to be a disappointment for Winfrey. But as Ronald Glover of Bloomberg Businessweek pointed out, cable is a different game. "Cable television is not afternoon television, it's not broadcast television," he told CBS. "The number of channels that the OWN channel is competing against is huge."

CBS also reported that Winfrey sent a memo to her staff, which read, in part, "We are in this boat together in a very real way now. And I will put my brand and my future on the line because I know this one team ... is the boat I want to be in." That's a good thing for Oprah, as since her show ended, OWN is the only TV boat she's in.