Two kinds of people in the world.Back with more in a moment.
(CNN) -- There will be no more car giveaways, no more tearful interviews and Tom Cruise will have to find someone else's couch to jump on.
Friends and fans alike are mourning the impending loss of Oprah Winfrey's syndicated talk show in 2011, sharing the sentiment that it will be very difficult to fill the Queen of Media's high heels.
Fellow talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who appeared on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine's December issue with Winfrey, broke the news to her in-studio audience at the taping of Thursday's show that she had received a personal phone call from Winfrey about the announcement.
"I don't think I could be here without her. I think she has blazed a trail. ... She is an amazing woman. She will always be the queen of daytime television," DeGeneres said. "
Actress Elizabeth Reaser concurred at the New York premiere of "New Moon," saying, "no one could fill her shoes."
Celebrity cook and talk show host Rachael Ray has promised to "enjoy every episode between now and 2011."
"Oprah opened the door for me to move into daytime television and I can't thank her enough," Ray said. "I look forward to seeing what she does next. There will only ever be one Oprah!"
Winfrey's friend Gayle King, who is also the editor-at-large for Winfrey's magazine, devoted her entire Sirius satellite radio show on Friday to fielding phone calls from devastated Winfrey fans.
"I am wearing black today -- I am going to have a brief period of bereavement because I still can't even believe the news myself. And I've known that this was coming, but even after you hear it it's still hard to believe," King said.
A caller named Pat told King, "I am in mourning. ... She meant so much to me, so much to us here in ... Chicago ... and it's just going to be so different without her. ..." A caller named Missy said she also wore black in mourning on Friday.
King comforted the callers by assuring them that Winfrey was "so at peace with her decision."
As segments of Winfrey's teary personal announcement were broadcast Friday morning, sad fans began flooding Twitter to lament the hole that will be opening in daytime television.
"Soooo sad, eternal depression begins now and will worsen on Sept 9, 2011," mrspalomino posted to Twitter.
"I really don't know what I'm going to do at 4 o'clock everyday now," jackiehanna24 posted.
The millions of mourners worldwide will just have to remember that the "Oprah" legacy will live on in a different format. Winfrey will premiere OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, a partnership with Discovery Communications, in January 2011.
No reasonable person can deny, denigrate or minimize what Oprah Winfrey has accomplished.
And I stand in the group congratulating those accomplishments.
For that matter, I can even throw in a little personal feeling of look back to go with it. The first time I ever saw her was during my Nashville days when she was living there and doing the weekend news on the local CBS affilliate, WTVF.
That was a good ten years before she made Chicago her kind of town (Chicago is...her kind of...) and began laying the foundation of what would become Harpo Productions and the empire that is now symbolized by a single letter.
O.
I've been in, and around, the business of show and media in general way past long enough to totally get that people get attached to other people and/or the things that people represent to them.
One word, Benjamin.
Fans.
And without them a whole lot of people who spend their working hours each day trying to motivate other people to spend hard earned dough on the fruits of the aforementioned whole lot of people's labors would be releasing CD's that nobody listened to, making movies nobody watched and writing books, or even blogs, that no one was interested in reading.
Or doing television shows to an empty bunch of seats in a studio.
Oprah Winfrey's television show has, without question, been a force doing good in the world for what will end up being two and a half decades.
And even I'm not so cynical that I can't see and freely admit to seeing the service that she has done millions of people along the way.
But I dont think it unfair to offer up that Oprah would be the first to step up and agree that her primary accomplishement has been to create a television persona who has, in an engaging and entertaining way, informed, enlightened...and put a lot of things into perspective for people.
You go, girl.
Mind if I give that perspective thing a shot?
Oprah Winfrey...
..is a successful television personality...
...has, through the years, been an invaluable source of information, entertainment and, yes, even inspiration to millions of people throughout the world...
...rightfully deserves to be recognized as a pioneer in broadcasting, blazing a trail for both women and blacks and making it possible for them to succeed on their merits in a society still too easily prone to showing the hand to either group...
...is a compassionate, caring and conscientious contributor to society, while at the same time, being...
... a sharp, shrewd and savvy businesswoman...and...
...has probably made more money than General Motors will ever make again...
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Now that her show's end game has been announced, I'm pretty sure I won't get the call to come and chat with her about all of this, so let me take the liberty of putting a few words in her mouth.
Chances are that Oprah would be the first to say that what she announced this week was the end of a chapter in a very interesting, as yet unfinished, book.
And as she is still young and healthy, I'm a thinkin' there are a whole lot of chapters yet to come.
Celebrating and toasting the end of said chapter is a party we can all enjoy.
"Mourning" the end of a television show is just creepy.
And more than just a little sad.
You wear black when someone you love and respect dies.
Not when somebody stops taping a talk show.
In that case, you just find another talk show.
Like the one I'm hearing will be supposedly be showing up sometime in 2011 on a new cable network.
OWN.
The Oprah Winfrey Network.
Oprah deserves all the props she's getting from all the peeps.
Not only for what she has done, but for what she obviously knows.
Two kinds of people in the world.
Leaders and followers.
Leaders find an effective way to motivate people to listen to what they have to say.
Followers wait to hear what other people have to say.
And, apparently, wear black when TV hosts move on to the next chapter.
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