Shock and disbelief describes the look on Janica Puzey's face when she just learned Oprah Winfrey plans to quit her nationally-televised show.

"I'm sad and surprised," she said with an almost teary-eyed frown after hearing the news Friday afternoon "She makes people's wishes come true. She's so awesome!"

That reaction typified the response of scores of Utah fans who are regular viewers of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," which airs Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. on KUTV Channel 2.

"I always watch it with my mom and sister," said Puzey, 22, of Kaysville. "I watch it all the time. There were shows my mom watched that I didn't like and shows I watched that she didn't, but this is something we could watch together."

And local viewer distress isn't limited just to women, according to Russ Snider, 27, of Salt Lake City. Snider watches Winfrey's show when he can, and says he'll miss her uplifting topics. "She focuses on the good, rather than the gossip," he said. "And she has all this money, but she's still like an everyday person."

Winfrey announced on her Friday show that her final episode will air September 2011. She is expected to focus on creating a new cable television network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), to be co-owned by Discovery Communications. OWN will replace the Discovery Health channel when it debuts in January 2011, and will available in 80 million homes.

"Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and feels right in my spirit," she told her studio audience. "I certainly never could have imagined the yellow brick road of blessings that have led me to this moment."

"The Oprah Winfrey Show" is the foundation of what would become a multibillion dollar media empire for the 55-year-old television personality, which also includes books, films and a popular magazine. At a personal wealth of $1 billion, Winfrey is the wealthiest celebrity in the U.S., according to Forbes magazine.

But it's her quarter-century of TV shows that has had its greatest impact on popular culture, attracting a largely-female viewership and fan base craving conversation ranging from celebrity interviews to fashion, home decorating and health issues. Winfrey has also spawned spin-off series under her Harpo Productions banner, including "Dr. Phil" and a new series on health by host Mehmet Oz.

"There will never be another Oprah," said Heather Armstrong, who herself has built a large audience through her www.dooce.com blog from her Salt Lake City home.

In April, Armstrong appeared via a Web camera on Winfrey's show to promote her memoir, "It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita. " "She is peerless," Armstrong added. "There is no equal, and there is going to be a huge void."

Armstrong said she was "about to wet myself" before appearing on "Oprah." "When you watch her interview people, she has this knack to be relatable to every person she talks to," she said. "It's like she's known them for years."

Winfrey didn't disclose future plans beyond working on the launch of the new network, though many have speculated she will start up a new talk show on the channel. Winfrey promised, however, that her last episodes will be good ones.

"Over this holiday break, my team and I will be brainstorming new ways that we can entertain you and inform you and uplift you when we return here in January," she said. "And then, Season 25 -- we are going to knock your socks off."

CBS Television, which distributes the syndicated program, had tried to renegotiate a show extension, even suggesting moving her studio to Los Angeles, but no agreement was reached.

"The Oprah Winfrey Show," which had humble beginnings as a Chicago morning program, currently airs in 200 U.S. markets and in 145 countries. It averages 42 million viewers per week nationally.

In Utah, the show is the No. 1-rated program in its 4 p.m. time slot for KUTV, the CBS affiliate that carries it.

Yet in the past two years, Winfrey's show has seen a significant drop in local viewers, losing about half of its audience in the past two years, from an 8.5 rating in November 2007 to 4.4 this month, according Nielsen figures.

KUTV will brace for the impact when Winfrey's show ends in two years. The program has been a big lead-in for KUTV's local 5 p.m. news, which has ranked just behind the No. 1-rated KSL in the afternoon news ratings.

"It's the best daytime talk show, and it was a valuable asset to the newscast," said KUTV general manager Steve Carlston. "It was a great companion to our news, but it's not the only companion."

Another avid Utah viewer, Sharee Jenkins, who records the show every day, is already looking ahead to Winfrey's next big "aha" moment.

"I'm kind of excited," said the 42-year-old Tooele woman. "Then she can focus on what she wants to focus on instead of doing a show five days a week. I think she's got bigger things to do."

Information from the Associated Press was included in this story. The Tribune is in a news-sharing partnership with KUTV.