After 25 seasons on the air, the Oprah Winfrey show will come to an end in 2011:

Oprah Winfrey was set to announce Friday that her powerhouse daytime television show, the foundation of a multibillion-dollar media empire with legions of fans, will end its run in 2011 after 25 seasons on the air.

A Harpo spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday on Winfrey’s plans except to say that “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which has seen ratings slip 7 percent from a year ago, will not move to cable television.

Winfrey, 55, is widely expected to start up a new talk show on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a much-delayed joint venture with Discovery Communications Inc. that is projected to debut in 2011. OWN is to replace the Discovery Health Channel and will debut in some 74 million homes. An OWN spokeswoman declined comment Thursday.

Whatever your thoughts about Oprah, no one can deny that she has been a major force in American media over the past two decades. Her opinion and even her approach to current news topics influence and shape the thinking of millions.

In only five days, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ has brought in $550 million worldwide. That is a new record, not only for video game sales, but for all entertainment releases.

The latest in the “Call of Duty” video game franchise went on sale Nov. 10 and quickly started breaking records. It hauled in $310 million in North America and the United Kingdom alone during the first 24 hours, making it the biggest-selling launch in the history of entertainment.

Except for a phase of crazed Ms. Pac-Man playing during the first Reagan administration, I have never caught the video game buzz. Therefore, I have no way of making an informed opinion as to the quality of this new game.

But that sure does seem like a mountain of excitement for, well, a video game.

Fresh data from Nielson:

For the 2008-2009 TV season, the amount of television watched reached an all-time high as Americans spent four hours and 49 minutes a day on average in front of the TV, up four minutes from last year and up 20% from 10 years ago. The average household watched eight hours and 21 minutes a day on average, also at an all-time high.

In the words of the late Neil Postman, we are “amusing ourselves to death.”

Most audio editions of the New Testament can be listened to in less than 25 hours.

So, if you give up television for one week (Monday-Friday), you can listen to all of the New Testament.

Police have arrested a group of young people–mostly teenagers–for robbing celebrity homes. Last week police charged Nicholas Prugo, 18, with robbing Lindsay Lohan and Audrina Partridge. He’s accused of stealing $170,000 worth of clothes and jewelry. The others–three 18-year-olds, one 19-year-old and one 27-year-old–were arrested on charges of residential burglary. Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom and Rachel Bilson are also burglary victims.

But the interesting thing is the alleged burglars’ possible motives. A Los Angeles police officer said, “They were rabid consumers of everything celebrity” and were motivated by “profit and celebrity worship.” They allegedly used the internet to learn the layouts of the stars’ homes and to find out when they would be gone.

Blair Berk, an attorney for some of the celebrities, told the LA Times the paparazzi is to blame: “There are only so many shots of a star’s back gate before someone, be it a stalker or burglar, goes through it.”

When I was growing up in the 1960s, it seemed like every time you turned on the TV Soupy Sales was getting plastered with a pie. The well-liked comedian died last night at age 83.

WORLD movie reviewer Megan Basham gives us the lowdown on the much-anticipated film Where the Wild Things Are, which opens in theaters today:

You could certainly be forgiven for assuming that director Spike Jonze’s new film . . . is an adventure movie intended to capture the hearts of kids. After all, the film is based on Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, and the exhilarating trailer, with it’s brilliantly rendered Henson-worthy creatures, flashes of forest romps and desert treks, and taglines like “Inside each of us is . . . fear” and “Inside each of us is . . . hope” advertises nothing if not a roaring adventure film. But this subtle, emotional allegory is a long way from a children’s movie, and it’s likely the 10 and under set won’t understand much of what happens on screen despite those lovable looking monsters.

Read Megan’s review in its entirety here.

WORLD movie reviewer Megan Basham writes that although the film is played for laughs, The Informant! leaves out an important aspect of Mark Whitacre’s life story:

[W]hile Whitacre’s foibles offer great satirical material and [Matt] Damon’s performance will have those who like their humor offbeat rolling, toward the end The Informant! starts to feel more cruel than clever. Scenes that trade on Whitacre’s bipolar disorder for laughs are particularly cringe-inducing. And though the film disclaims at the outset that it was inspired by one reporter’s interpretation of events and is not even a point-by-point recounting of that, it is still disappointing that it never alludes to Whitacre’s redemption. In fact, till the very end it shows him persisting in his lies, a portrayal at odds not only with interviews Whitacre has given but also with the statements of the FBI agents involved. (A cynical reviewer might even wonder whether Soderbergh and executive producer George Clooney treat Whitacre with more scorn than they otherwise would have because of his faith.)

Read Megan’s review in its entirety here. Also, to get the other half of Mark Whitacre’s life story, read Marvin Olasky’s Q&A with the noted whisteblower.

To view a video of Mark Whitacre’s recent appearance at The King’s College in New York, click here.

Bob Dylan made the news twice this week.

First, Columbia Records will be releasing Dylan’s first-ever Christmas album on October 13, with the U.S. royalties being donated to the charity Feeding America.

Second, Dylan is in talks with two car manufacturers who want to secure his voice for their in-car navigation systems. As one reporter quipped, “Insert your own Dylan-lyric pun here about ‘no direction home’ or ‘there must be some way out of here’ or ‘how many roads…’”

Or perhaps, it’s easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred.

Monday’s unveiling of Dancing With the Stars’ newest cast members included one name that surprised many fans: former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. DeLay, who left Congress in 2006 after he was indicted on money laundering charges, said he jumped at the opportunity: “Conservatives can have fun too. Conservatives can let their hair down… and put on some dancing shoes.”

He said he’s in it to win–a goal analysts say is probably also aimed at remaking his image: “You’re reaching an audience that otherwise is going to tune out politicians,” Stuart Roy, a former DeLay spokesman, told ABC News. “What people don’t see — but political people will — is that the promotion of the show goes far beyond putting out a press release.”

But can he really dance? According to DeLay’s wife, Christine, he has already mastered the two-step, polka, waltz, country swing, and disco. His daughter, Dani, also indicated that he has lost 12 pounds from exercising in preparation for the show. But I guess we’ll just have to wait until the show’s Sept. 21 season premiere to judge for ourselves whether “The Hammer”–as he was known during his congressional days–has a shot at dancing his way to victory.

Back in my younger days—when I wanted to be a rock ’n’ roll star and play lead guitar—the guitar I wanted to strap over my shoulder was a Gibson Les Paul. The man behind that electronic marvel that guitarists like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Peter Frampton, Pete Townshend and countless others (but not me) coaxed incredible solos out of, died today at age 94.

Guitarist Joe Satriani called him “the original guitar hero.” Terry Stewart, president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, added, “Without Les Paul, we would not have rock and roll as we know it. His inventions created the infrastructure for the music and his playing style will ripple through generations. He was truly an architect of rock and roll.”