Finale Episode Of The Oprah Show: Season 25 Said To Be Bringing In $1 Million Per 30 Second Ad

Oprah is seriously drawing every last penny out of the Oprah Show before letting it go.

Lining up every major interview imaginable – minus Mike Vick – wasn’t enough. Now Oprah is asking for prime time ad money for her final show.

The asking price for a 30-second ad on Oprah’s May 25 finale is $1 million, according to Horizon Media researcher Brad Adgate. That’s more than last year’s finales of ABC’s Lost ($900,000) and Fox’s 24 ($650,000), despite Oprah having a smaller audience (about 7 million viewers) than either of those dramas. Oprah’s distributor had no comment.

You have to go back to the season finale of CBS’ Everybody Loves Raymond ($1.2 million) to find a steeper asking price for a series finale.

The most expensive finale in Adgate’s research? The finale of Friends, which commanded a nearly Super Bowl-sized $2 million.

Adgate points out that there’s increasingly an event glow around a series finale, making it more akin to a live telecast even when taped, and Oprah is a brand that many advertisers want to be associated with.

In other words, Oprah WILL be getting a milli per ad.