Fox's American Idol Tops Optimedia’s ‘Content Power Ratings Report’

ABC Claims Other Top-Three Spots with Dancing with the Stars, Grey's Anatomy

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/5/2008 9:23:00 AM

Media-buying powerhouse Optimedia released its first "Content Power Ratings Report," and ABC claimed two of the top three spots.

The planned quarterly report ranks shows according to four factors, audience size (TV, Web and mobile devices), audience appeal (awareness, core values and quality), interest (public relations, buzz) and streaming (extent of Web play). Optimedia is looking to provide a measure of a show's "commercial value."

Topping the list was Fox's American Idol, followed by ABC's Dancing with the Stars and Grey's Anatomy. ABC had four of the top 10 shows, NBC three, Fox two and CBS one. ABC also had the best-performing new show, Pushing Daisies at No. 13.

The rest of the top 10 were NBC's Heroes at No. 4, followed by CBS' CSI, NBC's The Office, ABC's Lost, NBC's Deal or No Deal, ABC's Desperate Housewives and Fox's House.

Cable makes its first appearance at No. 43 with Lifetime's Army Wives.

Optimedia pointed out that primetime rankings do not necessarily correlate with its power ratings, using NBC as an example. While Heroes, The Office and 30 Rock were ranked Nos. 27, 79 and 88 in the primetime Nielsen Media Research ratings in 2007, they ranked Nos. 4, 6 and 18 in the power rankings. And The CW's Gossip Girl, despite relatively low ratings, outranked ABC's Private Practice due to "high level of interface with its audiences via online, mobile, PR, generated word-of-mouth and the strength of its appeal to its core audience."

For the rest of the top 100, check out Optimedia Top 100.