Everyone should know this by now: Never count Oprah out.
Despite business stumbles and an $88 million earnings drop since last year, Oprah Winfrey returns to the top of Forbes's annual Celebrity 100
ranking of the most powerful celebrities after two years of coming in
second place. She leads a female-dominated top 10, where six of the 10
spots are occupied by women, including Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Madonna, Taylor Swift, and Ellen DeGeneres.Four are are pop stars. While women trail men financially in many sectors, they can earn as much as (if not more than) men in music thanks to the great equalizer — touring. Stars make the vast majority of their money on tour and fans of both sexes are more than happy to pay up for the expensive tickets. Compare that to the movie industry, where women are often relegated to the girlfriend role (which almost always pays less) or lower-budget films, which have to make serious profits to return significant money to the stars.
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
smooth(-ish)-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, programs 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 Forbes 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, 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.Last year’s number one, Jennifer Lopez, falls to 12th place on our list this time around. With American Idol in her rearview mirror, Lopez just doesn’t carry the same buzz as a year ago, despite the ratings implosion of the show. No worries, though. She still managed to pull in $45 million from a major concert tour and endless endorsement work.
Beyonce
Edited:by Amina Design.
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