Oprah To Quit in 2011?

By Marcus Gilmer in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 10, 2008 9:00PM

Oprah will be ending her popularly syndicated talk show in 2011, at the end of her 25th season. Unless she doesn't. It all depends on who you talk to. David Zaslav, Discovery Communication's president and CEO, the business partner work with Oprah on her soon-to-launch Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), said, "The expectation is that after [the 2010-11 season] her show will go off of … syndication, and she will come to OWN...We're talking now about what that presence would be and what programming she would be involved in directly. But this is her Chapter Two, and building the OWN brand online and on-air is something that she and I, we're working [on] together and it's a core mission for her." This makes sense: after all, her ratings are down and 2011 will be the conclusion of her 25th season of being nationally televised, not to mention the last year on her current contract. And it's not like there's a lack of things to keep her busy.

But some say the end might not be that soon. Lisa Halliday, chief spokeswoman for Winfrey's Harpo Productions, responded by saying, "She has not made a final decision as to whether she will continue her show in syndication beyond that." Of course, Oprah has flirted with quitting before yet both times resulted in lucrative contract extensions. Whether or not she signs another extension may hinge on how much control she gets: her current syndication deal limits the her ability to rerun her show on OWN. Perhaps a little more flexibility there might lead to more Oprah?

OWN will launch in 2009, replacing Discovery Health in approximately 70 million homes. She's addressed the issue, as recently as January, yet it offers no more closure than we've gotten before.

"The truth of the matter is one day the show has to end. That may be 2011 and that may be after 2011," Winfrey told reporters in January. "This is an evolution of what I've been able to do every day. I will now have the opportunity to do that 24 hours a day on a platform that goes on forever.

"This network isn't just about me," she said. "It's using the voice and the brand and the vision, but it really is about creating possibilities for any number of people ... to extend the vision in a way that obviously I cannot 24 hours a day."

Image by lstolpman