12 MARCH 2002
Daytime TV queen Oprah Winfrey is to hang up her microphone in 2006, a spokesman for the show announced on Monday. Oprah has signed a new two-year extension to her current contract keeping the The Oprah Winfrey Show on air until the 2005-2006 season, but after that the former actress will call a halt to a daytime run that will have lasted nearly 20 years.

Oprah is one of US television’s highest-paid personalities – she earned a reported $150 million in 2000 alone – and is the first woman in history to own and produce her own talk show. Since it first appeared nationally in 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show has consistently maintained the number one position in the US daytime talk show stakes. It has, however, taken a dip in the ratings of late.

The show is currently aired on 280 US TV stations and is shown in more than 100 countries worldwide. Oprah, whose net worth according to Forbes magazine is a total $800 million, has as yet made no official statement about her decision.

The woman whose name has become practically synonymous with daytime television began her broadcasting career in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1972 and relocated to Chicago in 1986. She has also combined her television career with acting, winning an Oscar nomination in 1985 for The Color Purple and acting in and producing an adaptation of the Toni Morrison novel Beloved in 1998.

Matt Roush, a senior editor with TV Guide in the US said it was a huge decision by the talk show host. “Oprah going off the air will clearly be a major moment in television,” he said. “She’s just become so popular. She’s become such an icon, whereas some of these other talk shows are mere distractions.”