脱口秀女王奥普拉的最后演出

After a quarter of a century on air, this was the surprisingly low-key finale of ABC's Oprah Winfrey Show.

"This last hour is really about me saying thank you."

With 48 Emmy awards and an average audience in the final season of 6.4 million people, perhaps the star of the whole thing felt she had nothing left to prove, using the opportunity, instead, to speak with some emotion directly to her viewers.

"You and the show have been the great love of my life."

Oprah pioneered the confessional TV talk show format, revealing the personal details of her own life to the audience.

"I have lost as of this morning, as of this morning 67 pounds since July 7."

It was a formula and an atmosphere that helped others to let go and do the same.

"I'm in love."

But however intimate the style, her show became a cultural phenomenon. Her sofa was the destination for big-name interviews, and even bigger audience giveaways.

"Every single one of you desperately needs a brand-new car."

For one US television legend, Oprah's popularity is driven by a single key skill.

"There's a lot of glass. In TV, the lens has glass; the screen has glass. Glass is a very thick, hard thing to penetrate with, you know, personality. And she just goes right through it."

The young girl who grew up in rural Mississippi without a television is now a media mogul thought to be worth around two billion pounds, ranked as the third most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine last year.

The first lady of US TV isn't hanging up her microphone just yet. She's ended her show to concentrate on building up her very own cable channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

"I won't say goodbye. I'll just say until we meet again."

Hannah Thomas-Peter, Sky News, New York.