Before you get the hanky out, know that Oprah calling it quits with her highly successful, long running daytime talk show is about like Jay Leno leaving “The Tonight Show.” By the time it actually happens, we will probably have forgotten it is happening or be well over the shock of her leaving.
Oprah made the announcement today that she will be ending “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2011, after 25 years on the air. In case you are wondering what impact the end of the show will have, it is currently viewed in 145 countries around the world and brings in about 42 million viewers each week in the U.S. alone. It is the longest running daytime talk show currently on the air and the highest rated in the history of American television. While the show has always been popular, the ratings have slipped a bit (7%) since last year.
“The Oprah Winfrey Show” started on September 8, 1986. What have been some of the Oprah show highlights over the years? Here are just a few:
1986 – Dying of AIDS, showman Liberace gives his last interview to Oprah.
1988 – Oprah, who has suffered dieting ups and downs during the entire run of her show, fits into her size 10 Calvin Klein jeans and wheels out 67 pounds of fat in a wagon to show her weight loss.
1996 – Oprah starts her book club. In 2005, author James Frey, whose “Million Little Pieces” was picked for the book club, is vilified on air by Oprah for letting her audience believe his work was non-fiction.
2004 – Oprah gives everyone in her audience a car. The total of this, with 300 audience members, costs about $7 million dollars.
2005 – Tom Cruise dances on Oprah’s couch to proclaim his love for Katie Holmes.
2006 – Oprah is sued by for her comments about mad cow disease, but ends up winning in court.
2009 – Sarah Palin gives her first interview about her new book “Going Rogue: An American Life” to Oprah.
Now, if you think that Oprah, who surely has enough money, is going away completely, consider this: She has her own network, The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), and may consider a new talk show there, although reps for the network have declined to comment.
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