That was followed by a confirmation via press release from the President of Harpo, Tim Bennett.

He said, “Tomorrow, Oprah will announce live on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ that she has decided to end what is arguably one of the most popular, influential and enduring programs in television history. The sun will set on the ‘Oprah’ show as its 25th season draws to a close on September 9, 2011.”

The first oddity (but certainly not the last) about the eight-week Oprah Winfrey infomercial “Oprah’s Big Give” is that there is nary a single genuine giving moment to be found during the opening hour.

It is instead a profoundly hyperkinetic and unwieldy adventure in product placement, in Oprah-as-Messiah hype and, ultimately, in what’s so utterly fake and insidious about “reality” television itself.

Because the ABC series operates under the high-minded guise of bringing life, rescue and joy to people in need, it’s actually even more disturbing than those shows claiming no similarly socially redeeming purpose.

While the recipients of this largesse no doubt truly benefit in a format that’s one part “Queen for a Day” and one part “The Amazing Race,” the question must be asked early on: Is it worth being exploited as a quasi-pathetic charity case on national television, replete with on-cue manipulative sappy music and photo ops choreographed by editors seemingly in the throes of epileptic seizure, to gain that helping hand?

The idea here is that, armed simply with a photo, directions and $2,500 in cash, 10 selfless soldiers — including an Iraq War vet, a dot-com millionaire, a paraplegic author and a pre-med student — must change the lives of their needy assigned human/family in five days through fundraising, corporate sponsorship or just plain love (which in this case is another synonym for cold hard cash).

The “Biggest Giver” will wind up with $1 million, though Oprah insists “that’s a secret!” Oh really? These people are taking weeks out of their busy lives just to help their fellow man?

What makes “Oprah’s Big Give” especially unwatchable is a vertigo-inducing pace. Few shots last more than three seconds, making it virtually impossible to get to know any of these people on anything more than a surface level. Which is probably as it should be.

Shallow as a birdbath, the program would appear to exist less as a true philanthropic exercise than yet another self-aggrandizing vehicle in Oprah’s divine quest to become synonymous with all that is virtuous and good on Earth. We might well refer to this as “Touched By a Talk Show Host.”

Oprah Winfrey, the daytime talk show host whose media empire also includes a television production company, radio show, magazine, popular Web site and other ventures, will soon be getting her own television network.

Ms. Winfrey and Discovery Communications said on Tuesday that they would jointly create OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable television channel to make its debut in 2009 on what is now the Discovery Health Channel. Discovery Health is available in more than 70 million homes.

The new channel will not initially carry “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the top-rated syndicated daytime talk show featuring Ms. Winfrey as host. But Ms. Winfrey said that she had the option to end that show in 2010 or 2011 and could move the talk show to the new channel then.

“Eventually that will happen, we hope,” Ms. Winfrey said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

The venture will be half owned by Discovery, of Silver Spring, Md., and half by Harpo Inc., Ms. Winfrey’s production company, which is based in Chicago. Ms. Winfrey will serve as chairwoman of the network, will have full editorial control over the joint venture and will be responsible for its “programming, branding and creative vision,” the companies said.

In addition to continuing her syndicated talk show, Ms. Winfrey said she would also continue to produce programming for other outlets. A new reality show, “Oprah’s Big Give,” is scheduled to begin on ABC in March.

Discovery and Harpo said the new venture involved no additional cash investment, but that Ms. Winfrey would contribute her Oprah.com Web site to the company. This is not Ms. Winfrey’s first foray into television programming. She was an initial investor in the Oxygen cable channel in 1998, but she soon cut many of her ties to that company.

Asked about the difference between Oxygen, which was sold to NBC in October for $925 million, and the latest venture, Ms. Winfrey said Oxygen “did not reflect my voice.” That assertion is subject to interpretation, however; Ms. Winfrey was host of a 12-part series called “Oprah Goes Online” on Oxygen. The show was sort of a primer on the Internet. She also was frequently referred to as a co-founder of the channel in news reports at the time.

“I was not a participant in the development of the channel,” she said. “That’s why after a couple of board meetings I took myself off the board.”

With the Oprah Winfrey Network, “I will have editorial control,” she said. “I have a vision for what we want to accomplish with this network.”

David Zaslav, president and chief executive of Discovery Communications, said that he and Ms. Winfrey would immediately begin a search for a chief executive for the Oprah Winfrey Network.