Today Harris Interactive announced the top 10 list of America’s favorite television personalities. What surprised me about the survey was that it included personalities that haven’t had a show in years, such as Bill Cosby and Jerry Seinfeld, and personalities from some popular shows did not make the list, such as Martha Stewart and Dr. Phil.
The difference between search term data and survey data is vast – survey respondents are usually given a set list of items or names to choose from, and are thus forced to think about their choices. I might watch Jon Stewart every night and occasionally visit the Daily Show website, but still think that Jerry Seinfeld’s show was funnier, thus choosing Seinfeld as my “favorite TV personality.”
Search term data is the ultimate form of unaided recall – the words people type into a search engine indicate that they want more information on something relating to that person or item. Whether they are searching for news on Martha Stewart’s prison experience or trying to navigate to her website for a recipe or a Valentine craft idea, the act of typing “martha stewart” into a search box can be considered a measure of the strength of her public persona. Obviously it’s not always positive, but it’s an indication people are thinking about her.
With that in mind, I made a list of all of the current TV personalities and added up their individual share of search volume from January 1-28, 2006. Below is the list of the Top 10 TV personalities by share of Internet searches compared to the Harris Poll results. The lists have only four names in common: Oprah, David Letterman, Ellen Degeneres, and Jay Leno. The online popularity of Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray and Emeril demonstrates that having a cooking show is a great way to gain an online fan base.