New York:
Perhaps Oprah Winfrey has finally found a way to top her Pontiac car giveaway.
On Monday, the first day of the final season of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the host announced that she would take the 300 members of her studio audience on a trip to Australia in December.
"After all, this really is my 25th season," Ms. Winfrey told her studio audience, amid joyous screams. "And this is really my last chance to do something really big."
In 2004, Ms. Winfrey drew attention for giving away sedans to her audience. That stunt has been rated TV's greatest surprise by the Paley Center for Media.
On Monday her audience members were offered an eight-day, all-expenses-paid trip to Sydney. Ms. Winfrey -- who has never taken her talk show outside of the United States -- says she will tape at least two episodes in Australia, including one at the Sydney Opera House.
Ms. Winfrey said the trip, called "Oprah's Ultimate Australian Adventure," had been in the works for almost a year. It is being sponsored by Tourism Australia, Chevrolet and Motorola.
Ms. Winfrey is striving to make a lot of noise during her premiere week, as well as what is being called the "farewell season" of her show, which remains television's most popular daytime talk show. A full-page advertisement in Monday's Washington Post promised, "The moments we'll always remember; the season we'll never forget."
Later this week, Ms. Winfrey will interview Naomi and Wynonna Judd, revisit some of the people she featured in a 1987 episode about the AIDS epidemic and announce her next book club selection.
Ms. Winfrey is ending her show in part so that she can concentrate on OWN, a cable channel that is jointly backed by Discovery Communications and her production company, Harpo Productions. The channel starts up on Jan. 1.
It remains unclear just how big a presence Ms. Winfrey will have on the channel, though Discovery recently invested another $89 million in OWN, and in exchange Ms. Winfrey "agreed to increase her on-air commitment," according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.