No one ever accused Rupert Murdoch media properties of being fair and balanced least of all his money-losing Democrat-hating baby the New York Post. Still Friday’s Michael Starr article on Oprah Winfrey’s ratings declines is a truly remarkable effort in keeping the boss happy at all costs.

Starr writes about the long slow decline in Oprah’s ratings for her afternoon syndicated talk show. He notes early on that the show’s numbers are “down by nearly a third, 32 percent, records show” before jumping into the speculation pool for a quick dip of “Why?”

One source suggested she has too many projects and isn’t giving enough of her attention to the show any more. Then Starr hops into the deep end:

Others have speculated that Oprah is seeing an “Obama Backlash” — a reaction against her public endorsement of Barack Obama’s presidential run and her active campaigning for him. It’s not necessarily that people were against Obama, the theory goes. They just did not like the talk-show host taking sides in a political campaign — something she’d never done before. It took away the feeling fans had that somehow Oprah was above the fray.

Hmmm. What a great theory. Except for the part about her ratings dropping for each of the last five years. Oh, yeah, that. Ratings are down 21% for TV’s biggest hit, American Idol since 2006. I’m sure Obama has something to do with that too.

Not that the Post writes about ratings like an industry trade nor should it be expected too but isn’t the more interesting story about Oprah is that even she is not immune to the reality that broadcast television is dying almost as fast as newspapers. Ratings for broadcast television — network, local, and syndicated — have collapsed and with the recession ad revenue has followed. Plenty of people in the industry are talking not about a rebound but a reinvention. Without it broadcast television as a dominant or even significant media force in America will end.

The real deal on Oprah is this: It costs local stations vast sums of money to buy Oprah each week and for years it’s been worth it. Oprah rocked the ratings and delivered those viewers to stations’ local newscasts where they recouped the investment. Not any more. Local news ratings in the 4pm and 5pm time slots have plummeted across the country (so badly at the flagship station for fourth-place NBC that WNBC will kill off the famed “Live at Five” newscast in September and fill the hour with super cheap lifestyle programming) leaving station managers desperate to cut costs.

Oprah’s syndication deal only runs through the 2011 season and she is launching her own cable network next year. The economics — both for local stations and Oprah — dictate that she leave broadcast television in much the way pro sports (other than football) have done.

So when the Post headlines “Game O-ver?” the paper isn’t wrong. It’s just the headline shouldn’t be about Oprah, it should be about broadcast television.