CHICAGO — Oprah Winfrey plans to tell viewers on Friday’s live
edition of her top-rated daytime program that she will retire the syndicated
talk show that made her rich, famous and, if not a kingmaker, a maker of a
media empire, several best-selling authors and perhaps even a U.S. president.
The show, based in Chicago, will conclude at the end of the
2010-11 season, its 25th on national TV.
Harpo Productions confirmed Thursday both her decision and
that she will discuss it on her program. The last of “The Oprah Winfrey
Show” would air on Sept. 9, 2011.
Speculation has been rampant that Winfrey might choose to
leave daytime TV ever since it was announced in January 2008 that she and
Discovery Networks planned to partner on a cable network, OWN: The Oprah
Winfrey Network.
The cable network’s debut, originally set for this year, has
been delayed more than once, and a launch date is expected to be firmed up by
the end of this year for sometime in 2010. The new channel will take the place
of what is now Discovery Health, available in 70 million homes from the start.
One problem for the new venture was that until Winfrey
completed her commitment to CBS Television Distribution, her syndicator, and
the stations that carry her program, she would not be free to do a talk show
for the cable channel or give other OWN matters her full attention.
Winfrey’s program, which entered syndication in 1986, has
dominated daytime TV for most of its run, evolving from typically exploitative
fare into something more spiritual and, lately, seeming to find a happy medium:
offering the Black Eyed Peas one day, a young girl with a birth defect another,
and Whitney Houston using the show as a confessional on yet another day.
Ratings this season seem to have bounced back from lows last
season that some attributed to Winfrey’s vocal support for then-Sen. Barack
Obama’s run for the White House, her first public political endorsement.
The impact of the Obama endorsement, on his campaign and on
her show, remains difficult to measure. Her program remained a dominant No. 1
even in a lean year.
Winfrey’s interview Monday with former Alaska Gov. Sarah
Palin, who ran as Sen. John McCain’s running mate against Obama and then-Sen.
Joe Biden in 2008, gave her program its largest audience for any hour in two years.
Palin was promoting a new book, and Winfrey’s show has
become a coveted platform for authors and publishers because of its ability to
vault even obscure works to best-seller status, particularly through its
“Oprah’s Book Club” segments over the years.
Similarly, a product plug on the show has been known to
cause a run on little-known marketers.
From the talk show’s success, Winfrey has been able to build
a media empire that has included O magazine, O at Home magazine, Oprah.com and
a Sirius XM satellite pay radio channel, as well as movies and television
shows, such as “Rachael Ray,” “Dr. Phil” and “Dr.
Oz.”
Just this week, it was reported that her Harpo Productions
was close to a deal with Sony Pictures Television to syndicate a program
featuring designer Nate Berkus, whom she has been featuring on her program for
eight years.
Winfrey also has starred in films such as
“Beloved,” which was made only because she deemed it important, and
Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple,” which she later shepherded
onto Broadway. She also was a founding partner in the Oxygen cable network, but
eventually left.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
