Ellen DeGeneres Beats Out Oprah for Top TV Star Title

ROCHESTER, January 15: Ellen DeGeneres took the top spot in The
Harris Poll’s annual favorite television
personality list, beating out Oprah Winfrey, who took second place this year,
and Jay Leno, who came in third.

DeGeneres’s rise to the top comes after five years in the
bottom five, including last year’s tie for eighth place. Jay Leno’s third place
ranking also marks a significant rise, as last year he came in sixth.
Meanwhile, Oprah drops from the top position after maintaining it for the past
five years.

Others on the top-ten list include House’s Hugh Laurie, who came in fourth, and Jon Stewart,
who dropped from second to fifth. Tied for sixth are David Letterman and
Stephen Colbert—this was Colbert’s first year on the list. Bill O’Reilly
took the number eight spot, and another tie filled up the ninth and tenth
spots, this time between Ray Romano and Homer Simpson (for whom this was also
his first time on the list).

The two personalities that have dropped off the list are 24’s Kiefer Sutherland and Conan O’Brien.

The results are drawn from a nationwide Harris Poll of 1,171
U.S. adults surveyed online between December 4 and 12, 2007.

When broken down by demographic, men cite Leno as their
favorite television star, while women overall say it’s DeGeneres. Between
women, single women lean towards DeGeneres, while married women choose Oprah.
Among age groups, those aged 13 to 30 select Colbert for the top slot, and
those aged 31 to 42 choose Leno and Stewart equally. For those aged 43 to 61,
Oprah is number one, and for those above 62, she ties with Bill O’Reilly.

—By Ned Berke