Holding back tears, Oprah Winfrey told her studio audience Friday that she would end her show in 2011 after a quarter-century on the air, saying “prayer and careful thought” led her to her decision.

Winfrey told the audience that she loved “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” that it had been her life and that she knew when it was time to say goodbye. “Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and feels right in my spirit,” she said.

Winfrey talked about being nervous when the program began in 1986, and thanked audiences who had invited her into their homes over the past two decades.

“I certainly never could have imagined the yellow brick road of blessings that would have led me to this moment,” she said.

The powerhouse show became the foundation for her multibillion-dollar media empire, but in the last year, has seen its ratings slip 7 percent. Winfrey, 55, is widely expected to start up a new talk show on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a much-delayed joint venture with Discovery Communications Inc. that is projected to debut in 2011. OWN is to replace the Discovery Health Channel and will debut in some 74 million homes.

Winfrey said she and her staff were going to brainstorm ideas for the final season of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and that she hoped viewers would take “this 18-month ride with me.”

In Season 25, “we are going to knock your socks off,” she said. “The countdown to the end of ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ starts now.”

CBS Television Distribution, which distributes the show to more than 200 U.S. markets, held out hope it could continue doing business with Winfrey, perhaps producing a new show out of its studios in Los Angeles.

“We know that anything she turns her hand to will be a great success,” the CBS Corp. unit said in a statement. “We look forward to working with her for the next several years, and hopefully afterwards as well.”

Many fans heading into Harpo Studios on Friday morning seemed to support Winfrey’s decision to end the show.

“You always want to end a show when people want more — and not when people are sick of watching you,” said Rebecca Switaj, 31, of Chicago.

Said Sandra Donaldson, 59, of Indianapolis: “It’s time to elevate to something new. Whatever she does is going to be a blessing. It’s going to be rewarding and eye-opening. Her name alone opens doors.”

Once a local Chicago morning program, the production evolved into television’s top-rated talk show for more than two decades, airing in 145 countries worldwide and watched by an estimated 42 million viewers a week in the U.S. alone.

“Oprah Winfrey is in a category of her own,” said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. “This is a great American story and like any great American story it’s supersized.”

Fans expressed hope that Winfrey would announce another project on Friday.

“Oprah, she impacts everybody, her life, the way she gives,” Shawana Fletcher, 29, of Chicago, said outside Harpo Studios. “I hope she’s not totally done. That’s what we’re praying.”

Winfrey’s 24th season opened this year with a bang, as she drew more than 20,000 fans to Chicago’s Magnificent Mile for a block party with the Black Eyed Peas. She followed with a series of blockbuster interviews — Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, singer Whitney Houston and ESPN’s Erin Andrews, and just this week, former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

As a newcomer, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” chipped away at talk-show king Phil Donahue’s dominance. Later, it turned to inspiration. The show’s coverage ranged from interviews with the world’s celebrities to an honest discussion about Winfrey’s weight struggles.

“As the show evolved, it really kind of dressed up the neighborhood of the daytime talk show,” Thompson said.

Source (article): MSNBC

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Oprah Winfrey’s decision to put her name on KFC’s online coupon promotion turned quickly into a “PR nightmare,” as described by QSRweb, which covers the quick-service restaurant industry.

The nightmare isn’t, as you might think, due to Oprah’s hypocrisy in lending her name to one of the worst chicken-abusers in the food business, but rather to the overwhelming response of consumers demanding their promised free food. Gawker spread a rumor that there were “riots” breaking out on Wednesday at a Midtown Manhattan KFC outlet.

There weren’t, but there were a lot of angry people who thought they would get a free two-piece Kentucky Grilled Chicken meal but didn’t because the store had run out. The coupons were promoted both on The Oprah Winfrey Show and at Oprah.com.

A spokeswoman from KFC owner Yum Brands (YUM) told the Louisville Courier-Journal that the promotion created “extreme demand nationwide.

So extreme that KFC President Roger Eaton had to write a note of apology to would-be freeloaders who flocked to Oprah’s Web site to download their coupons. “We are so sorry,” he wrote, “but due to the overwhelming response to our FREE Kentucky Grilled Chicken meal coupon, we can no longer redeem the free coupon at this time.” The company would offer rain checks, along with a free Pepsi, to those who already had coupons, he assured.

Advertising Age called in a “crisis expert” to assess the situation. “The combination of free food and Oprah is a tsunami,” said Robbie Vorhaus. “Clearly KFC wasn’t ready.”

Have KFC executives ever watched Oprah give stuff away on her show? What did they think was going to happen?

Meanwhile, almost lost amid all the hoopla is the question of why Oprah would lend her name to KFC, which is a primary target of animal rights activists who say the chain uses suppliers—chiefly Tyson Foods (TSN)—that house chickens in deplorable conditions before killing them in a deplorable manner.

Oprah has reapeadtedly rallied against factory farming and was once targeted by the meat industry for her on-air avowal to avoid burgers.

Paul Crossfield of Civil Eats wrote that because “Oprah has marketed herself as one who cares about animals, even getting a ‘Person of the Year’ award last year from PETA, this KFC campaign is a serious disappointment to say the least.”

Not that we should be shocked. Oprah has repeatedly shown that her principles are flexible.

Source (article): THEBIGMONEY

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