Oprah tops Forbes annual list of 100 most powerful celebs

Guy Dixon

Tennis has its player rankings. Soccer has its World Cup standings. Celebrities have Forbes magazine's top 100 list of The World's Most Powerful Celebrities, which this year has turned younger in flavour.

Few will be surprised to see Oprah Winfrey, with her personal media empire and an estimated $315-million in earnings in 2009, move up from second to top spot, usurping last year's first-placed Angelina Jolie.

But a little further down the list, a young contingent includes Lady Gaga (fourth place) and two stars from the Twilight movie franchise, Robert Pattinson (50th spot) and Kristen Stewart (66th), all making their first appearances on the Forbes ranking. The top Canadian is Avatar director James Cameron, who came in third behind Winfrey and pop phenomenon Beyoncé Knowles.

But how does Forbes quantify and rank that sparkle of mass appeal that constitutes fame and power?

First, a celebrity's estimated earnings from myriad media deals and endorsements are calculated. Tiger Woods, for instance, who rounded out the top five after Lady Gaga, earned an estimated $105-million during the ranking's timeline of June 2009 to June 2010 with his ongoing deals with Nike, Electronic Arts and others.

But his personal life has, of course, caused many companies to pull their endorsement deals, so his ranking is expected to drop precipitously come next year. Forbes also admits to adjusting its earnings estimates with figures from other sources such as Billboard, Pollstar and different research groups.

Fame is then calculated simply by the number of web hits on Google and other databases like LexisNexis and the press aggregating service Factiva, along with simply the number of times the celebrity's face appears on the cover of any one of 25 consumer magazines.

That kind of notoriety helped Madonna, who still manages to drum up attention, leading to her 10th-place ranking, down from third last year.

Finally, social rank is added to the mix, measured by the number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, according to Forbes. Madonna in fact ranked first in socal media and web presence.

The big losers? There is Jolie's drop from first to 18th. However, actor Will Smith (11th last year) and rapper 50 Cent (coincidentally or not, 50th last year), both with no big hits last year, slid from the top 100 altogether.