Roman Polanski will remain in jail until Friday while he raises $4.5 million bail. A Swiss court approved Polanski’s release on bail and his house arrest at his Gstaad chalet last week while the government decides whether to extradite him to the U.S. Unlike in the U.S., where bail bondsmen can post a percentage of the total bail to get someone released from jail, Swiss law requires that bail be paid in full. Polanski has been behind bars since his Sept. 26 arrest on a U.S. warrant as he arrived in Switzerland to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival. “Polanski will not be in Gstaad until Friday at the earliest, and only if the bail has been paid in full”, Folco Galli, spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, told EW.

Oprah Winfrey made it official on a live episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show today that she’ll end her run in daytime on Sept. 9, 2011, 25 years after her show first went on the air. “I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it’s time to say good-bye,” she told the audience. “Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and it feels right in my spirit. It’s the perfect number — the exact right time.”

She did not, however, address her next move, saying only that she hopes people will continue to watch over the next 18 months through to the end of the show’s run. “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.  So the countdown to the end of The Oprah Winfrey Show starts now and until that day in 2011 when it ends, I intend to soak up every meaningful, joy-filled moment with you.”

Separately, Harpo Prods., which produces the show for CBS Television which syndicates the talk show to 215 U.S. stations and 145 countries, announced that Winfrey will appear and participate in new programming for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network when it launches in January 2011. The cabler is a joint venture with Discovery Communications.

A 33-year-old California man who briefly participated in a taping of ABC’s Wipeout in late October died on Nov. 5 in Los Angeles from an apparent stroke. The death of  Tom Sparks, which was first reported by an online publication, may have been triggered by a pre-existing blood condition; his father, Bill, released a statement to the Idaho Mountain Express saying that his son had a rare disease that causes clotting.

A spokeswoman for Endemol, which produces Wipeout for ABC, confirmed that Sparks was running the first segment of  the obstacle course on Oct. 19 when he began complaining of knee pain. The man remained in good spirits, even stopping to do an interview with the show’s host, but the producers pulled him from the course, the spokeswoman said. Medics then discovered Sparks was experiencing shortness of breath, so he was taken to the hospital. Endemol learned of his death via a statement posted by the man’s father on a social networking site. The spokeswoman said the production company has not heard from the family.

Endemol requires all show participants to undergo full medical examinations before they are allowed to participate in the game show, though the tests would not necessarily reveal pre-existing conditions. Sparks, a former disc jockey in Idaho, had reportedly completed a marathon before applying to appear on Wipeout.

“We offer our heartfelt condolences to the family,” a joint ABC/Endemol statement read. “This is a tragic loss and our thoughts are with them at this time.”