Oprah Winfrey’s exit from daytime TV will mean more than just a studio scuffle for the time slot she mined for gold for TV stations. It also likely signals, many experts say, the beginning of an inexorable decline for the daytime syndicated talk show, which has occupied a central spot in mainstream culture ever since “The Phil Donahue Show” rolled out nationwide nearly 40 years ago.

“Oprah” has been more than just a show; it serves as the cornerstone of a multimedia empire that has transformed books, diets and exercise schemes into instant bestsellers and made household names out of Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Rachael Ray. Winfrey has played a key role in encouraging frank and open discussion of such issues as sexual abuse and, with her endlessly chronicled weight gains and losses, body image.

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NEW YORK — Like any wife who knows her husband well, Nancy Martus knows what will annoy her man. Like when she utters the phrase, “Oprah says…”

“He doesn’t like it when I start my sentences that way,” laughs Martus, a 36-year-old mother of three in Plymouth, Mass. “He says he doesn’t care what Oprah says.”

Good luck with that, Mr. Martus.

For his wife and for millions of women around the country, Winfrey has become, over the years, much more than a regular television date. Talk to her fans, and you hear a familiar refrain: Oprah’s like a favorite aunt, a sister, or a friend. Forget the sprawling media empire and the billions that separate her daily existence from that of ordinary folks. To these fans, she still feels like a BFF.

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In another blow to the struggling business of network television, Oprah Winfrey is expected to announce on her program today that she will step down from her syndicated afternoon talk show, which over the last two decades has transformed her into one of the richest and most influential forces in popular culture.

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Chicago without Oprah? That scenario loomed Thursday as a prominent show-biz blogger reported that Oprah Winfrey is getting ready to move her show to Los Angeles.

Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood said Winfrey will announce the move in the next few weeks. It would take place when the talk show’s syndication contract ends in 2011.

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A flight attendant on Oprah Winfrey’s private jet who was allegedly fired for having sex during a flight in June while the talk-show billionaire dozed on sleeping pills filed a federal lawsuit Friday denying the allegations.

The lawsuit filed by Corrine Gehrls, 39, alleges that flight attendant Myron Gooch and Kirby Bumpus, who is the daughter of Winfrey’s friend Gayle King and is Winfrey’s goddaughter, made the false and defamatory accusations to cause her to be fired.
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NEW YORK — Oprah Winfrey is opening her talk show’s 24th season with a flourish. One week of programs include a Chicago block party with the Black Eyed Peas, an exclusive Whitney Houston interview, her first Dr. Phil visit in seven years and a trip to New York.

It’s hard to remember when it seemed more important.

Winfrey is still the queen of daytime television, but the aura of invincibility is gone. The average viewership for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” slipped under 7 million last season, down 7 percent from the year before, according to Nielsen Media Research. One week during the July rerun season, the show had its lowest ratings since its 1985 debut.

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