Viewers are Oprah's focus during 25th, last season

CHICAGO — The 25th and final season of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" starts airing Monday and the talk show host says she plans to focus on the people she thinks are responsible for the show's success: the viewers.

"This year you will see lots of surprises for other people, dreams coming true for other people, really honoring the essence of what has made this show work for the past 25 years and that's the viewer," Winfrey said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"The last season is a celebration of the past 24 years. For me, it is about holding a place of reverence and honor for the people who made this possible for me: that would be the viewers."

Harpo Productions has released a schedule highlighting the first week of new shows, but Monday's season premiere remains "top secret" with only hints of celebrity guests and a surprise musical performance.

During the remainder of that first week, Winfrey will host country music stars The Judds and revisit the city of Williamson, W.Va., where she filmed a town hall episode about AIDS in 1987. During a live Friday show, she will announce her first book club selection in nearly a year.

So what else can fans and longtime watchers expect over this season? A-list celebrities? More makeovers? An outdoor extravaganza similar to Winfrey's show that shut down Chicago's Michigan Avenue last season?

"I would anticipate that they're going to pull out all the stops," said Bill Carroll, an expert on the daytime television market for Katz Television in New York. "If any production team has that ability and certainly the Oprah folks, the folks at Harpo, have proved that over the years."

Winfrey's departure from a daily talk show on broadcast television is akin to host Johnny Carson's departure from "The Tonight Show," Carroll said.

"People of a certain era remember Johnny Carson's last show," Carroll said. "This generation is going to, in a bittersweet way, say goodbye to this chapter of Oprah's story."

But this farewell isn't a final goodbye. Winfrey is set to launch her Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN, on cable Jan. 1. The end of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" will be featured on that network with "Behind the Scenes: Oprah's 25th Season," a one-hour series giving viewers a look at the making of the last season of Winfrey's talk show.

Winfrey describes her show, which is syndicated to 145 countries, as having a cultural impact on her viewers around the world.