On Good Morning America, ABC’s Sam Champion warned East Coast viewers it’s not just going to be insanely hot today, but–brace yourself–you might not have air conditioning to endure the heat. Champion says the monster heat wave is pushing power grids toward capacity as temperatures hover around 100 degrees and energy consumption strains the system. It’s called a “heat dome,” a shroud of high pressure that’s keeping millions of Americans stuck in a prison of hot, humid air–and a very real possibility of power failures.

Eric Bolling is not afraid to show his enthusiasm. His judgment, however, on what, when and where are the most appropriate times to share his enthusiasm is questionable at best. Take for example his recent comment on his personal Twitter feed that celebrated his current standing on the Mediaite Power Grid compared to the standing of the recently departed CNBC host Mark Haines. In fairness, he did qualify the comment with “no disrespect mean to his old friend…” So, at least there is that.

Forbes released its annual list of the 100 most powerful celebrities today, and look! Some of your favorite media moguls, TV hosts, and radio personalities made the cut. Here at Mediaite, we rank these folks against each other on the regular with our trusty Power Grid. Granted, the numbers on the two lists differ with Forbes’ inclusion of other types of celebrities (like Britney Spears, coming in at #6 – nice comeback, girl!) but let’s take a look at how they compare, shall we?

It’s tough to be a TV reporter. While the anchors get to relax in the studio, you have to be running all over the place, trying to find the best source, dealing with hostile officials, and occasionally being forced to deliver a report while standing in the middle of a giant hurricane. And the life of a reporter has gotten even tougher as the invention of Twitter has forced them to be “on” even when the cameras are off. Fortunately, some intrepid souls are able to survive all these trials and stand above the rest. Using the power of the Power Grid, we will now identify these titans of the field and then give them the tribute they deserve…by ranking them in order of Twitter followers.

TV Week has released its annual “10 Most Powerful in TV News” list today, placing Roger Ailes, the NBC team, and the CNN team in the medaled positions, respectively. Jon Stewart is the top-ranked TV personality at #5, with Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck taking the #7 spot together. Univisión and the Huffington Post did not keep their positions from last year. The takeaway? The TV industry has gotten much more competitive this year, and the collective panic attack over CNN’s ratings may have been premature.

Reviewing Mediaite’s Power Grid ranking of the top Print and Online Columnists is loke looking at the modern day Journalistic Hall of Fame. Familiar bylines – from business models old and new – peacefully coexist next to one another: Krugman and Kruathammer pleasantly reside in the same canon as Huffington and Hitchens. But one of these things is not like the other: NY Post columnist Richard Johnson, whose Page Six column not only redefined “gossip” in the new millenium, but also maybe one of the most influential and underrated media critics of our time.

Last week Rachel Maddow visited the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and we came away with a rather shocking revelation: conservatives hold Maddow in the highest esteem. A remarkable development given today’s bitter partisan media divide, that to be fully appreciated, one need only imagine the reception that fellow MSNBC cohort Keith Olbermann would have received “behind enemy lines.” Is it time to officially recognize the fact that Rachel Maddow is now officially more respected and influential than Olbermann? The answer is yes.

We here at Mediaite spend our days wondering about life’s greatest mysteries. But much more importantly, we wonder which of our beloved media personalities wields the most power. Our Power Grid does an excellent job of ranking, cataloging and categorizing the personalities, but sometimes, the finer nuances of influence and change need a human touch.

The Daily Beast took a stab at one of the harder sciences of the media world last night, publishing a list of the top 25 most influential right-wing journalists in America. It is a pretty comprehensive list, with all the usual suspects making appearances, and both conservative and libertarian columnists taken into consideration. “What unites them all, broadly,” writes columnist Tunku Varadarajan, “is their influence on the public debate, and their place on the political spectrum—which is somewhere to the right of center.”

Sarah Palin made her debut on Mediate’s Power Grid this week, and not surprisingly, immediately claimed the number one spot among TV Pundits. Ms. Palin dominated the category, placing number one among in TV mentions, web buzz, news buzz, and blog buzz.

In the age of the Verified Account, we expect our celebrities and media personalities to be on Twitter. It’s both the quickest and easiest way for them to reach their audiences and it provides a small window into the minutiae of their everyday lives. So we’ve tallied and ranked the top 25 media figures by number of Twitter followers and the results, if not surprising, are telling.

Last week, Jake Tapper‘s potential facial hair (and high profile interviews) made him a big gain on the Power Grid — all the way up to the #2 spot. Then, he spoke out about the government’s campaign against Fox News and he came out ahead. Plus: Erin Andrews and Ann Coulter!

In our weekly recap of movement in the Power Grid, we run down all of the big shifts and their current event causes. This week, we weigh White House Correspondent Jake Tapper‘s facial hair, Sumner Redstone‘s financial woes and People magazine’s huge photo exclusive to see how they affected our leader board.

A look at the Power Grid this week reveals a few fixtures that never waver. But just behind them in the rest of the top ten all it takes is a big scoop or scandal to send ripples through the rest of the rankings. Here are the big shake-ups from the past week and a look at what caused them:

Though the Power Grid is often a lesson in maintaining influence over time (see: Anna Wintour), due to its automated algorithm, movement in the ranks can often be traced directly to a piece of news or media event. And it’s not the movement that is interesting in and of itself, but the reasons behind it.

This week, Erin Andrews is a perfect example.

It’s no secret that we’re obsessed with competition and we get our kicks from big movement on the Power Grid. Recently malady has been responsible for movement in the rankings: just look at Dr. Sanjay Gupta and New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin . But who were the other big movers and shakers, and why the fluctuation? Find out inside.

Mediaite experienced some déjà vu this morning when the press release for the brand new Atlantic 50 landed in our inbox. The ’50,’ we were informed “follows hundreds of leading opinion-makers and commentators to provide an essential framework to the day’s best analysis and most daring and important arguments.” Sound familiar? To us, too!

As if to confirm that the pre-Labor Day news drought is officially over, there’s been a ton of movement in the Power Grid this past week. Upstarts have risen, giants have fallen, and Eliot Spitzer has broken into the top five TV pundits. What does it even mean, man? Before we answer that, we’d like to introduce a brand-new feature of the Power Grid: story aggregation.

If you’ve paid any attention to our coverage of nightly television ratings, you know that Fox News Channel is more than running the show, sometimes beating all of its competitors combined. But this cable news hegemony goes beyond ratings, as the top five ranked TV pundits on our Power Grid stand firmly on the right of the political spectrum, while the top four call Fox home.

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. Howard Stern, for one, should be happy.

The new Mediaite Power Grid rankings for TV reporters are up, and ABC’s Jake Tapper is out of the top spot.

But the bigger story is who replaced him – ESPN’s Erin Andrews. Despite not appearing on ESPN at all this week, Andrews skyrocketed to #1 in every category (except Twitter followers, where she doesn’t have an account). Instead, Andrews took first because last week, she was the story.

The ratings battle for first place in late night that was predicted when Conan O’Brien took over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno has come to fruition. On a weekly basis, O’Brien and CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman trade off the top spot (although they both have been getting beat by ABC’s Nightline). The race in the ratings means a fluid fight for supremacy on the Mediaite Power Grid.

Bill O’Reilly has a TV show that has been #1 on cable news for years, best-selling books, and a robust Web presence. So it should come as no surprise he is the most influential cable news host on the Mediaite Power Grid. O’Reilly cracks the top 5 (#4), and it takes 15 more slots down the grid to get to the second most influential cable news personality. But, it’s a fellow Fox Newser.

As President and CEO of Meredith Corporation, Steve Lacy is second only to Time Inc.’s Ann Moore ranked in the Magazine Titan category of the Power Grid, outranking other stalwarts of print including Conde Nast’s Chuck Townsend, Hearst’s Cathie Black and Rodale’s Steve Murphy. What?

The Magazine Editors category on the Power Grid has engendered some good debate here at Mediaite’s global headquarters. Summing up: should a Magazine Editor be rewarded more for the public profile of the title they oversee, or more for how they promote their own name.