Oprah Winfrey‘s top-rated syndicated show may have ended in May but apparently that hasn’t hurt the daytime diva’s ability to influence people. According to E-Poll Market Research, Winfrey is the most influential celebrity around.
That might seem hard to believe considering the ratings at Winfrey’s struggling cable network, OWN. While ratings have improved a little thanks to Winfrey’s show Oprah’s Next Chapter, that show (the network’s most popular) is only attracting around 1 million viewers.
So while people might not be watching Oprah’s network, they still care about what she thinks and does.
Winfrey clearly knows how influential she can be and that’s not always a good thing. The talk-show-host recently got in trouble with Nielsen when she asked her Twitter followers who are Nielsen households to tune into OWN. That crossed a line for the folks at Nielsen and they asked executive at OWN to “police what it considered a possible biasing effect.”
Full List: Hollywood’s Most Influential Celebrities
Oprah’s influential score actually has fallen 10% in the past year but because scores for almost all celebrities fell, she ranks at the top of our list unseating Steven Spielberg who held the No. 1 spot last year. The list was compiled by E-Poll Research, an Encino, Calif., based service; its E-Score Celebrity service ranks more than 6,600 celebrities based on 46 attributes.
Winfrey’s 49% influential score means that 49% of the population believes she is influential. The average for all celebrities E-Poll tracks is only 11%. Ties on this list were broken by E-Scores which measure a celebrity’s “marketing effectiveness” by combining awareness, appeal and other factors.
So what does it mean to be influential?
“Influence is in the eye of the beholder,” says Gerry Philpott, CEO of E-Poll. “Someone can be influential if he affects your decision making or your views. Or someone can be influential if he has an impact in his own world.”
Spielberg, who this year ranks third with a 44% influential rating, is able to get any movie he backs produced in Hollywood. This year that’s netted him another Oscar nod, for War Horse which is up for Best Picture. He also influences the way we react with the world around us. Who doesn’t think of the movie Jaws when swimming in the ocean?
In second place between Winfrey and Spielberg is Michael J. Fox who has an influential score of 44%. Since he was diagnosed in 1991 Fox has been a tireless fundraiser for research into finding a cure for Parkinson’s Disease. His Michel J. Fox Foundation is the largest private funder of Parkinson’s research. He still acts occasionally but his influence stems more from his non-profit work.
One person who might want to be worried about not making the list this year is Rush Limbaugh. The radio-host ranked 4th last year but doesn’t even break the top ten this year. Considering it’s an election year, one would expect Limbaugh to be at his influential peak.
“Donald Trump dropped off the list as well,” points out Philpott. “He thinks of himself as quite the king maker and this year he’s not even on the list.”
Two directors round out the top five, Ron Howard and George Lucas who each have influence scores of 43%.
The most surprising thing I came across in this year’s list: Bill Cosby’s app. The 74-year-old comedian still tours extensively and he ranks 10th on our influence list this year with a 39% rating. The Cos is apparently also quite tech savvy. He has 2.5 million Twitter followers and a new app that features videos, photos, concert schedules and access to Cosby’s Twitter feed and fan walls. Who knew?