Power Grid Adds New Metric That Shakes Up Rankings

by Mediaite Staff | 1:50 pm, July 29th, 2009

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You asked, we listened: Mediaite has added a new statistic to the Power Grid that will at once shake up the ratings in a big way and make them more accurate. News Buzz tracks the number of mentions that a person has gotten from major news outlets over the past month, as tracked using Google News. Though News Buzz is just one of many factors that go into the ranking calculations, it should have the effect of counterbalancing more purely size-based stats, such as radio audience or TV viewership, to track who’s being written about and talked about, and of keeping the rankings more current and more closely tied to the news cycle — since news mentions more than a month old are discarded, no one can rest on their laurels.

newsbuzz Howard Stern, for one, should be happy: yesterday, he complained on-air to his listeners about his low rank on the Power Grid (#16). For the most part, that was a function of his fairly small audience since he made the move to satellite — which remains a major factor in the ranking algorithm, and which is why he didn’t jump even higher — but Stern’s large presence in news stories over the past month (he’s currently #3 in News Buzz with 452 mentions) has given him a shot in the arm.

The new stat is also good news for TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, who jumped from #10 to #5 among Print/Online Editors, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who jumped 10 spots from #26 to #16 among TV Reporters, and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who shot up a whopping 22 spaces from #30 to #8.

Of course, not everyone’s a winner: New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis slid from #13 to #22, and Ann Curry fell 24 spots, from #7 to #31.

The new stat has moved around a lot of people in high and low places, and the only way to fully satisfy your curiosity is to check the Power Grid, which, as always, is updated every day. Expect more improvements to the Grid in the months to come.

We are always working to improve our rankings. E-mail us at powergrid@mediaite.com for any additions, suggestions, or features you’d like to see added to the Power Grid of the future.