CHICAGO (AP) - "The Oprah Winfrey Show," an iconic broadcast
that began as a local Chicago talk show and grew over two decades
into the foundation of a media empire worth billions, will end its
run in 2011 after 25 seasons on the air, Winfrey's production
company said Thursday night.

Winfrey, who from a seat on the couch of her set in Chicago's
West Loop neighborhood became a billionaire and one of the most
powerful women in entertainment, plans to announce the final date
for her show during a live broadcast on Friday, said Harpo
Productions Inc.

A Harpo spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday when asked if
Oprah's decision to end the show meant she planned to retire, or
would move her broadcasting efforts onto a long-rumored Oprah
network.

Winfrey's 24th season opened earlier this year with a bang, as
she drew more than 20,000 fans to the city's Magnificent Mile on
Michigan Avenue for a Chicago block party with the Black Eyed Peas.

She followed up with a series of blockbuster interviews - Mike
Tyson and Evander Holyfield, exclusives with singer Whitney Houston
and ESPN's Erin Andrews, and just this week, former Alaska
governor, GOP vice presidential candidate and best-selling author
Sarah Palin. She found time between shows to lobby the
International Olympic Committee in Denmark for Chicago's failed bid
to host the 2016 Olympics.

Winfrey started her broadcasting career as a teenager in
Nashville, Tenn., reading the news at WVOL. Two years later,
Winfrey started co-anchoring news broadcasts on WTVF-TV in
Nashville. In 1976 she moved to Baltimore to anchor newscasts at
WJZ-TV before becoming host of the local talk show "People Are
Talking."

In 1984, she relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's morning talk
show "A.M. Chicago" - the show was became "The Oprah Winfrey
Show" one year later. She set up Harpo the following year and her
talk show went into syndication, rising to become one of the most
successful in the history of broadcasting.

"I came from nothing," Winfrey wrote in the 1998 book
"Journey to Beloved." "No power. No money. Not even my thoughts
were my own. I had no free will. No voice. Now, I have the freedom,
power, and will to speak to millions every day - having come from
nowhere."