Oprah Winfrey Show To End In 2011

[Mark Watson]

  Oprah Winfrey will announce on her Friday "Oprah" show that her talk show 
will end in 2011, which will be the show's 25th season. WCVB has aired 
"Oprah" as the lead in to it's 5PM news for several years, helping WCVB hold 
on to it's first place status among early evening newscasts, although I did 
see somewhere recently that "Judge Judy" which airs on WBZ had edged ahead 
of "Oprah" but couldn't hold the audience for it's 5 o'clock news. WMUR also 
airs the show as a lead in to it's 5PM news. Oprah's production company 
informed all the stations that carry the show of the impending announcement 
today so they would not be surprised by Oprah's comments on Friday.

  Even though we're less than 2 years from the final "Oprah", one has to 
wonder if the folks at Hearst are worried about seeing their longtime 
ratings stronghold and strong news lead in counting down the months & days 
till the final show.

   A link to a brief AP article from the Boston Globe's website:

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2009/11/19/winfrey_to_announce_friday_show_will_end_in_2011/

Mark Watson