After 25 seasons on the air, Oprah Winfrey was set to announce Friday that her powerhouse daytime television show, the foundation of a multibillion-dollar media empire with legions of fans, will end its run in 2011.

Oprah Winfrey

According to the Oprah Winfrey’s production company, Harpo Production Inc., Winfrey planned to announce the final date for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” during a live broadcast.

For more than two decades, the show was rated as the US television’s top-rated talk show, airing in 145 countries worldwide and watched by an estimated 42 million viewers a week in the U.S. alone.

Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, said Oprah Winfrey is in a category of her own. This is a great American story and like any great American story it’s supersized.

Winfrey, 55, is widely expected to start up a new talk show on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a much-delayed joint venture with Discovery Communications Inc. that is expected to debut in 2011. OWN is to replace the Discovery Health Channel and will debut in some 74 million homes.

CBS Television Distribution, which distributes “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to more than 200 U.S. markets, held out hope it could continue doing business with Winfrey, perhaps producing a new show out of its studios in Los Angeles.

The 24th season of Winfrey started with a bang this year, as she drew more than 20,000 fans to Chicago’s Magnificent Mile for a block party with the Black Eyed Peas. She followed with a series of blockbuster interviews _ Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, exclusives with singer Whitney Houston and ESPN’s Erin Andrews, and just this week, former Alaska governor, GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

In 1986, pianist-showman Liberace gave his final TV interview to Winfrey, just six weeks before he died. In a 1993 prime-time special, Michael Jackson revealed he suffered from a skin condition that produces depigmentation. Tom Cruise enthusiastically declared his affection for the much-younger Katie Holmes on the program in 2005 _ and jumped on the couch to prove it.

Winfrey unveiled her most famous giveaway in 2004, when nearly 300 members of the studio audience opened a gift box to find the keys to a new car inside. The stunt became a classic show moment as much for Winfrey’s reaction _ “You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!” _ as its $7 million price tag.

For Oprah’s Book Club, the show also became a launching pad, which then launched best-sellers. The titles ranged from “Song of Solomon” and “Paradise” by Toni Morrison to Wally Lamb’s “She’s Come Undone” and Elie Wiesel’s “Night.”

Talk of the show’s end often has accompanied Winfrey’s contract negotiations. Before signing her current contract in 2004, she talked about quitting after the 2005-2006 season. As far back as 1995, she called continuing “a difficult and important decision.”

Winfrey started her broadcasting career in Nashville, Tenn., and Baltimore, Md., before relocating to Chicago in 1984 to host WLS-TV’s morning talk show “A.M. Chicago” _ which became “The Oprah Winfrey Show” one year later. She set up Harpo the following year and her talk show went into syndication.

Powered by the show’s staggering success, Winfrey built a media empire. Harpo Studios produces shows hosted by Dr. Phil McGraw and celebrity chef Rachael Ray. O, The Oprah Magazine was the nation’s 7th most popular magazine in the first half of 2009.

In the 1998 book “Journey to Beloved.”, Winfrey wrote, “I came from nothing,” “No power. No money. Not even my thoughts were my own. I had no free will. No voice. Now, I have the freedom, power, and will to speak to millions every day _ having come from nowhere.”

Forbes scored Winfrey’s net worth at $2.7 billion earlier this year.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com)

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