Oprah strikes out on her OWN

FOR BOTH Oprah Winfrey and her millions of fans, it’s the end of an era: Wednesday saw the final ever episode of Oprah’s astonishingly successful daytime talk show.

Yes, after 25 years of emotional conversations, declarations of celebrity love (who can forget Tom Cruise leaping around on Oprah’s sofa?), book club controversies and discussions about how much weight Oprah herself has lost or gained, the woman who worked her way up from an impoverished childhood in the American deep south to become the first black female billionaire has shut down the show that made her name.

But 57-year-old Oprah was always adamant that she had no plans to retire after the last episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired in the US this week, (it’ll air soon on TV3). Two years ago, around the time she revealed that the 25th season of the Oprah show would be the last, she announced that she had plans for an even bigger television project — her very own TV network, OWN, which would be launched several months before her own show ended. “I want to take what I’ve established in daytime, inspiring people and giving them hope — and some cars — and build on that, 24/7, OWN style,” she told potential advertisers in Autumn 2010.