Who’s More Powerful: Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly?

We here at Mediaite spend our days wondering about life’s greatest mysteries: namely, what which of our beloved media personalities wields the most power. Thankfully, we have our own Power Grid,  which does an excellent job of ranking, cataloging and categorizing the personalities, but also sometimes needs the human touch to explain the finer nuances of influence. For this reason, we’re launching a new series that will analyze the Power Grid in an attempt to determine who really rules the airwaves. And who we should watch out for.

Today, we’re kicking things off with your favorite entertaineporters–anchors for Fox News. Bill O’Reilly currently holds the top spot, which is not a surprise, considering that he has the highest number of nightly viewers in the history of mankind. However, Glenn Beck, who is the #1 rated radio host, is just one spot behind; he’s almost always #2 to O’Reilly’s #1 in the ratings each night, and he has an astronomical number of Google hits and Twitter followers. Plus, while O’Reilly is busy writing a biography on Abraham Lincoln, Beck is working on his new book The Plan, but Beck gets some bonus points for reading Mediaite.

Rounding out Fox’s Top 5 Power Anchors, we have Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren and Shep Smith. No huge surpise here, as prime-time  spots traditionally attract the highest number of viewers, but it is nice to see the beloved newsman Smith break into the top five.  However, we have to note that FOX and Friends co-anchor Steve Doocy seems poised to make a big jump. Currently, Doocy ranks a rather pedestrian 12th amongst TV anchors at Fox, yet has more viewers and Twitter followers than anyone between himself and the Top 5. Within the Top 5, he beats Susteren in viewers and Smith in Twitter followers (Smith only has 831 Twitter followers and has sent a whopping two tweets. Doocy has close to 10,000, which means that, in case of apocalypse, Doocy wins.)

Doocy’s Google hits (a paltry 98,000) are really the only factor holding him back, so if Doocy gets one big scoop, he could make a big jump up. We’re not claiming to be the Oracle at Delphi over here. That is the Power Grid’s job. But just noting that Fox’s Top 5 may want to watch out for this morning-show dark horse.

For a complete rankings of all Fox News employees (starting with TV Reporters) that exist in the Mediaite Power Grid, please click here. (Scroll down for TV Anchors/Hosts.)