OPRAH’S FINALE: BIGGEST RATINGS SINCE 1994

Nielsen will not release final figures for another two weeks — ratings for syndicated television shows are traditionally delayed that long — but preliminary ratings for Wednesday’s finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show indicate that the show may have attracted around 18 million viewers. If so, that would have been the talk-show’s biggest audience since 1994. (It did not air in St. Louis, one of the nation’s largest markets, because the station that carries it there opted instead to air coverage of the storm battering the area.) Earlier in the week, Winfrey’s two-part “Farewell Surprise Spectacular” also drew big ratings. Still, the ratings for this week’s shows do not come close to matching some of those achieved during the first eight years of Winfrey’s 25-year-long run, when she sometimes drew more than 20 million viewers for more sensational topics than those she has felt comfortable presenting in recent years.