OPRAH is rolling into Central Park on Friday — where the weather report calling for rain is not the only dark cloud on the horizon.
The live show — featuring Mariah Carey, Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa– caps a breakneck week-and-a-half of big-budget shows that are intended to make everyone forget that her ratings are starting to slide.
At age 55 and after 23 years as the No. 1 show on daytime TV, Oprah is pulling out all the stops to steer her show out of a nosedive in viewership.
Her opening week reads like a Hollywood wish list: Whitney Houston’s comeback interviews, a Michael Jackson tribute show, a street concert in Chicago headlined by Black Eyed Peas and Jennifer Hudson — and now a live show from the middle of Manhattan.
Lots of theories have been floated about why her show — still No. 1 — has gone into decline, 7 percent in the last year alone.
Some believe Oprah lost the loyalty of viewers after endorsing Barack Obama’s presidential run. It was not that viewers did not like Obama, but that they didn’t like Oprah using her legendary powers of persuasion for partisan politics.
Over the weekend, Oprah seemed to be backing away from her close political affiliation with the White House — saying she’ll have nothing to do with the current tumult over health care.
“Everybody knows that I was a big campaigner for Obama, and I still am,” she said Sunday night at the Toronto Film Festival, where a movie she produced debuted.
“I think he’s doing a great job,” she told a reporter.
But “I have not said one thing about this political situation,” she said — “and I don’t intend to.”
So far, the push to get her ratings back has paid off, at least in New York.
Ratings for last Thursday’s street concert show were up 53 percent over last year.
Her show on Friday — featuring ESPN reporter Erin Andrews and Lisa Ling — did even better, up a whopping 73 percent over Winfrey’s second show last season.
Friday’s Central Park show at the SummerStage — near 69th Street and Fifth Avenue — will tape at 10 a.m., rain or shine, and air in its usual 4 p.m. slot on Ch. 7.
It will be the first time Oprah has broadcast her show from New York since 2007, when she coaxed David Letterman into his first sitdown interview in years.
Officials say tickets are being distributed through oprah.com.