In another blow to the struggling business of network television, Oprah Winfrey is expected to announce on her program today that she will step down from her syndicated afternoon talk show, which over the last two decades has transformed her into one of the richest and most influential forces in popular culture.
Although she has kept mum about her plans, Winfrey, 55, is expected to furnish a new show to OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network, the long-delayed cable outlet she is starting in partnership with Discovery Communications. The network is scheduled to roll out in 2011 in about 75 million U.S. homes.
The media personality and mogul -- whose show has served as the main pedestal from which she has engaged newsmakers high and low, transformed obscure products and personalities into runaway successes, and preached a gospel of self-empowerment to her devoted, largely female audience -- is betting that, in a world of ever-fragmenting audiences, the future lies with creating her own branded network. She was recently ranked No. 234 on a Forbes list of the world's richest people, with an estimated net worth of $2.7 billion.
Although Winfrey could not be reached for comment, Tim Bennett, the president of Winfrey's Chicago-based production company, Harpo Inc., confirmed in an e-mail Thursday to station partners that she would end the existing program Sept. 9, 2011.
"Oprah's personal comments about this on tomorrow's live show will mark an historic television moment that we will all be talking about for years to come," Bennett wrote.
Financial pain
Meanwhile, CBS and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC are expected to bear the brunt of the financial pain ushered in by Winfrey's departure. CBS, which acquired Winfrey's original syndicator, King World, for $2.5 billion 10 years ago, has taken in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue over the years from "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
ABC carries the show on many of its stations, including its owned-and-operated outlets KABC-TV in Los Angeles and WABC-TV in New York. The show, which has aired in late afternoon on most stations across the country, can be counted on to deliver big audiences for the local newscasts that usually followed it.
"She uniquely remains appointment television," Bill Carroll, vice president at New York-based Katz Television Group, which advises local stations on programming and other issues, said earlier this week when the Winfrey development was rumored but not confirmed. "When she came on and established herself, it was a sea change in the industry, and when she leaves it will be a sea change."
