One of the joys of watching television is seeing characters and over-sized personalities; in fact, one station even has a whole marketing campaign centered on characters. Each year, new television personalities are added to the list of favorites and others drop off, showing another joy of television watching – it is never the same, year after year. Talk show hosts were prevalent among the top 10 U.S. TV personalities in 2009, according to a Harris Interactive poll.

This year, likely due to her announcement that she will be discontinuing her show in September 2011, Oprah Winfrey is America's favorite television personality, up from No. 4 last year. Brand new to the list and debuting at number 2 is Fox News' personality, Glenn Beck, while last year's number one, Jay Leno drops to number three. One thing to note is that this survey was conducted before the change on NBC, dropping the 10pm Jay Leno show and moving him back to the Tonight Show. Ellen DeGeneres, host of an eponymous morning talk show and newest “American Idol” judge, dropped from number thee in 2008 to number four in 2009, tying with Hugh Laurie, star of the popular Fox medical drama “House.” Laurie was number two in 2008.

1. Oprah Winfrey
2. Glenn Beck
3. Jay Leno
4. Ellen DeGeneres
5. Hugh Laurie
6. Jon Stewart
7. Charlie Sheen
8. Mark Harmon
9. David Letterman
10. Bill O’Reilly

Women Like Oprah, Men Prefer Jay
Broken down demographically, different TV personalities are number one with different groups. Winfrey was number one with women overall, single women, married women, Gen X (33-44), baby boomers (45-63), Democrats, moderates, and residents of the East and South. Leno was number one with men overall, while Beck reigned supreme with Republicans, independents, conservatives, matures (64-plus) and residents of the Midwest. Liberals preferred Jon Stewart and Westerners liked Hugh Laurie. Recently departed “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien was favored by echo boomers (18-32).

TV Needs Stars
TV networks are in desperate need of star personalities and may sorely miss Winfrey’s popular syndicated talk show. The television industry in the US is expected to see lower-than-expected revenues of $15.6 billion in 2009 that will make for a 22.4% decline for the year. The significant drop begins a leveling-off of TV industry revenues, to the mid-$10 billion level - a level not seen since the mid-1990s - through at least 2013. Although online revenues and performance of some local markets are expected to grow in the next few years, NBC’s reluctance to let number three 2009 TV personality Jay Leno leave the network makes more sense given these figures.