Oprah Winfrey told her audience Friday that she had made up her mind to end her hit daytime talk show in September 2011 "after much prayer and months of careful thought."
Now much of the television industry is going to do a lot of praying and thinking as well to figure out how to prepare for life after Oprah.
Winfrey must figure out her second act, too, as she turns her focus to OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, the cable channel she plans to launch in 14 months in partnership with Discovery Communications. Winfrey is expected to have a visible presence on the channel, which will probably include a regular Winfrey-hosted program, although neither she nor Discovery is providing details yet.
Winfrey's decision to make her 25th year on broadcast television her last is the latest seismic shift in daytime TV. Once an expanse of soap operas and genteel talk shows, it has increasingly become the territory of the tawdry and tasteless, occupied by the likes of Jerry Springer and Maury Povich -- although pockets of politeness remain with hosts such as Ellen DeGeneres and Winfrey.
From a financial standpoint, the two with the most to lose, apart from Winfrey herself, are CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co.
During its nearly 10 years distributing Winfrey's show to local stations, CBS has raked in hundreds of millions in profits. CBS also has benefited from Winfrey's farm system, since it also distributes the "Dr. Phil" and "Rachael Ray" programs, from Winfrey's Harpo Productions, although Winfrey has steered her latest discoveries -- "Dr. Oz" and a potential new show featuring interior designer Nate Berkus -- to Sony.
For its part, CBS on Thursday moved quickly to downplay concerns on Wall Street that Winfrey's exit would take a big gouge out of its bottom line, and analysts tended to agree.
"Most of the value of Oprah has gone to the talk show host herself rather than to her distributors," said Marci Ryvicker, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities.
JP Morgan estimated that Winfrey's show currently pumps less than $50 million in revenue annually into CBS.
Meanwhile, many of Disney's ABC television stations have long relied on Winfrey's huge audience to boost ratings -- and advertising -- for the local newscasts that follow it.
ABC will have a big gap to fill. There is already speculation among industry insiders that the network may move its morning talk show "The View" to the late-afternoon time period that Winfrey will abandon.
