Oprah says ending show 'feels right'

Oprah Winfrey has said that she will end her popular TV show in 2011 because it "feels right in her bones" after 25 years, and urged her viewers not to believe rumours of why she's quitting.

"This show has been my life and I love it enough to know when it's time to say goodbye. Twenty-five years feels right in my bones, and it feels right in my spirit. It's the perfect number, the exact right time," Winfrey said during Friday's show at her Chicago studio.

During her long career atop the television talk show heap, her fluctuating weight and personal relationships have become tabloid fodder, and commentators have wondered whether she was tiring of the grind – only to see her slim down and revive her show's popularity.

"Over the next couple of days you may hear a lot of speculation in the press about why I am making this decision now, and that will mostly be conjecture," she said.

Winfrey choked up once and wiped away a tear during her 3½-minute announcement closing the hour-long live show, and her predominantly female audience gave her a standing ovation and then hugs when she stepped into the crowd.

Winfrey did not divulge her ultimate plans when the show ends in September 2011, but industry watchers say she may move to cable network OWN, or the Oprah Winfrey Network, a Los Angeles-based joint venture she formed with Discovery Communications Inc. OWN will be available in more than 70 million homes.

"The Oprah Winfrey Show," broadcast from Chicago on ABC stations across the United States and in more than 140 countries overseas, is one of the TV industry's biggest money-makers. It is the top-rated US daytime talk show, averaging 7.1 million viewers this year.

It has helped Winfrey, born in 1954 to a single mother in rural Mississippi, amass a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $2.3 billion and anchored an entertainment empire that produces television talk shows, movies, and the style magazine O, the Oprah Magazine.

Winfrey, 55, who earned an Oscar nomination for her supporting role in the 1985 film "The Color Purple," is considered a major opinion-maker in the United States. Her public backing of presidential candidate Barack Obama last year was considered a boost for the Democrat's campaign.

- Reuters