25 Years of Oprah's Screams

1.1M tune in, but Winfrey will likely need to boost that audience

(NEWSER) - Oprah's new talk show debuted Sunday night, and just 1.1 million people watched. That may sound like a lot at first—and, in fact, it is the second largest audience for any show on the struggling Oprah Winfrey Network—but not when you consider Winfrey averaged 6.5 million viewers in the last season of her old daytime show, Piers Morgan premiered in Larry King's old slot to an audience of 2.1 million, and the History Channel's Pawn Stars averaged more than 5 million viewers last month. More»

Cars, clothes ... herb rub?

(NEWSER) - Oprah Winfrey is famous for giving gifts to her audience, and those gifts have ranged from the extravagant (diamonds, cars) to the just plain bizarre (glitter Uggs?!). Slate lists her nine most memorable gifts:

• Spanx, 2000: The slimming undergarments might seem ubiquitous now, but they were new and still experimental 11 years ago. Oprah’s endorsement definitely helped Spanx along, and the product made $100 million dollars over the next decade.
• Pontiac G6, 2004: The first time Winfrey gave every single member of her audience a car, all 276 people flipped out. Then they flipped out again, in a less pleasant way, when they learned they each owed $7,000 in taxes on the vehicles.

The stage belongs to talk show queen on final show

(NEWSER) - After all the guessing, rumors, and speculation about who might appear on Oprah Winfrey’s final show, the answer turned out to be quite simple: Oprah herself. The talk show queen was the only person to take the stage during yesterday’s taping of her last episode, which airs today, audience members tell the AP . As celebrities including Tyler Perry and Maria Shriver sat in the audience, a teary-eyed Winfrey thanked viewers and talked about lessons learned during the show’s 25-year history. (Her "farewell spectacular," on the other hand, was quite star-studded —including a surprise appearance by Stedman Graham. ) More»

Talk show queen is going out with a bang on show's last year

(NEWSER) - Will Oprah Winfrey ’s good deeds never cease? The talk show queen donated $1 million to a California nonprofit that runs 30 charter schools in the state, the AP reports. Winfrey’s Angel Foundation donated the money to Aspire Public Schools during her show yesterday, which was devoted to Waiting for Superman, a documentary about public education. More»

This may just top her car giveaway

(NEWSER) - Oprah Winfrey is famous for her giveaways (watch her entire audience go nuts after receiving cars here ), but this may put them all to shame. Winfrey premiered the 25th and final season of her show today, and gave everyone in the audience ... a trip to Australia. Watch the 300 audience members, and Oprah herself, freak out in the above video. Later, her guest John Travolta told her, "Oprah, there's only one of you and there'll never be another one," E! reports. For more Oprah, click here . More»