Oprah Winfrey Regains No. 1 in 2013 List Of The Most
Powerful Celebrities
Everyone should know
this by now: Never count Oprah out. Despite business stumbles and an $88
million earnings drop since last year, Oprah Winfreyreturns to the top of annual Celebrity 100 ranking of the
most powerful celebrities after two years in second place. She leads a
female-dominated top 10 that includes Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Madonna, Taylor
Swiftand Ellen
DeGeneres.
The 2013 Celebrity 100
Even without her eponymous daytime
talk show, Winfrey made an estimated $77 million between June 2012 and June
2013, down from last year’s $165 million. While she wasn’t the highest earner
on our list, her money, mixed with strong fame scores in metrics like press
mentions and social networking power, pushed her to the top.
Winfrey remains a powerful
force in Hollywood. Her Oprah Winfrey Network, once a drifting cable outpost
that lost
an estimated $330 million for parent company Discovery between
2008 and the end of 2012, is now a smoothish-running media machine that could
turn a profit by the end of 2013.
Mistakes like Rose
O’Donnell’s talk show? History. Nailing must-see viewing, like her two-night
interview with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, is
Winfrey’s focus now, as are scripted shows with help from fellow Celebrity 100
member Tyler
Perry. In the near future, shows that don’t star Winfrey could
become as much of a draw as her own programs. Winfrey also earns from an empire
that includes her O magazine, talk shows from protégés like Rachael Ray and
Dr. Phil, and a network on SiriusXM satellite radio.
Unlike most lists, which are based on earnings or net
worth, our annual Celebrity 100 takes a stab at measuring that most ephemeral
of riches: fame. Yes, we factor in celebrity earnings over the last 12 months,
but we also tally how often each celebrity is mentioned in print and on TV, and
gauge the strength of their Internet presence and how they’re viewed by a
critical constituency: American consumers.
This year we added a
marketability score (1-100) for each celebrity that was developed by Encino,
Calif.-based market research firm E-Poll, based on
opinion polling about 46 different attributes for 6,600 different celebrities.Will Smith, Jennifer Aniston and Sandra Bullock are
the most marketable celebrities on our list (Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James ranks
dead last in that category).
For social networking
strength, we worked with another new partner,Starcount, a
Singapore-based company that measures impact across 11 social media platforms
including Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube and Google. Each celebrity’s Starcount number gives a sense of how popular he or she is on
the Internet.
Pop stars tend to do very
well on this metric. Last year’s Celebrity 100 cover boy, Justin Bieber, has
the most social networking power of the 100 celebrities on our list, followed
by Rihanna and
Lady Gaga.
Of course, money carries the most weight in our rankings, and thanks to that
Madonna is back on the Celeb 100–in fifth place–after two years off the list.
Even though her newest album, MDNA, was a flop, the
Material Girl still managed to rank as this year’s top earner thanks to a world
tour that helped her rake in $125 million between June 2012 and June 2013.
Lady Gaga, who topped our list in 2011 and is often considered
Madonna’s heir, ranks second despite cutting her tour short due to a hip
injury. Gaga still managed to earn $80 million and get the second-most press
mentions of anyone on our list (behind Rihanna). Gaga is also a master of
social networking. Her Little Monsters hang on her every tweet, making her the
third most successful social networker on our list.
Together with Beyonce (fourth,) Taylor Swift (sixth) and Ellen
Degeneres (10th) women occupy six of the top 10 slots on this year’s list, down
from seven last year. Overall, they landed 35 of 100 slots, about the same as last
year.
The four men who crack the
top 10 are director Steven Spielberg (third),
rock band Bon
Jovi (seventh), tennis player Roger Federer (eighth),
and pop star Bieber (ninth).
Spielberg is up seven spots
from last year, with estimated earnings of $100 million. The director was back
in peak form with political biopic Lincoln. The film
not only earned two Oscars, it also grossed a tidy $275 million at the global
box office on a budget of $65 million. Spielberg’s TV work isn’t going quite as
well, DreamWorks’ Smash was recently canceled
by NBC. But he’s got several new shows in the works, including a small screen
version of the popular video game, Halo.
Federer, the highest-ranked athlete on our list, is up 23 spots
from last year thanks to the most impressive endorsement portfolio in sports.
Ten sponsors collectively pay him more than $40 million annually. He’s also a
press darling. Federer ranks seventh for celebrities with the most mentions in
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