Ready for last O moment

Agencies

The Oprah Winfrey Show (often simply referred to as Oprah or simply just O) is a United States syndicated talk show, hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey, and is the highest-rated talk show in American television history. It is currently the longest-running daytime television talk show in the US, having run nationally since September 8, 1986, for over 22 seasons and 3,724 episodes till November 21, 2008.

The show is scheduled to be renewed in 2011, but in a 2007 interview with Larry King, Oprah said that in 2011, she would not renew her contract, thus ending the show. The show, a production of Harpo Productions, is the last programme currently on the air to be distributed by King World even though CBS Television Distribution has absorbed the latter.

The show has its roots in AM Chicago, a half-hour morning talk show airing on WLS-TV in Chicago. Winfrey took over as host in 1983, and within a year took it from last place to first place in the ratings. In 1986, it was re-launched under its current title and was picked up nationally.

Oprah has been included in Time magazine’s shortlist of the best television series of the twentieth century in 1998, and it made the top 50 of TV Guide’s countdown of the greatest American shows of all time in 2002.

The show is highly influential, especially with women and many of its topics penetrate into American pop-cultural consciousness. While early episodes of the show followed a Phil Donahue-style exploration of sensationalistic social issues, Oprah eventually transformed her series into one with an image of a more positive, spiritually uplifting experience by featuring book clubs, celebrity interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events.

The show began broadcasting in high definition beginning with its 2008-09 season premiere episode on September 8, 2008, becoming one of the first nationally-syndicated daytime talk shows to do so.

On November 19, 2009, Oprah Winfrey’s production company announced the show will be ending on September 9, 2011.



Ratings



The show averages about 8.5 million viewers per original airing and about 4.5 million for repeats.