Howard Stern continues his reign as "King of all Media" online for the fifth consecutive year, generating eight times more search activity than any other talk radio personality or team of radio hosts. Searches for Sirius Satellite Radio are also up 1,300 percent due to Stern's scheduled exit from traditional radio at the end of this year. Of total Stern search activity, 50 percent of online interest specifies Sirius Satellite.
"Based on the fact that half of Stern's searches specify Sirius, it's easy to predict that half of Stern's present terrestrial radio audience will follow him to satellite," said Dean Tsouvalas, writer of The Lycos 50. "Over the past year, Stern's popularity with web users has tripled, and if web search activity is any indication, David Lee Roth will pull in bigger audience numbers than Adam Corolla once Stern departs. But right now, Stern is 63 times more popular online than Roth, and Corolla's search activity doesn't even register a blip on the radar with web users."
Another big winner with web users this year is Laura Ingraham, seeing a 2,050 percent rise in search activity, up from number 28 last year. Kim Komando makes her first-ever appearance on this year's list, with a 500 percent bump in online interest.
While Sean Hannity experienced the biggest gain in online popularity last year, he slips 44 percent this year, falling from number five to number 11. But Mancow is the biggest loser this year, with a 109 percent drop in search interest, falling from number nine to number 19 in search activity.
Of the three newcomers to last year's list, only Tom Leykis remains, as Al Franken and Lionel drop off the list completely. Search activity for Franken dropped 95 percent over the past year.
The Top 20 Most-Searched Talk Radio Personalities of 2005 (numbers in parentheses reflect last year's rank):
1) Howard Stern (1) (See Profile)
2) Rush Limbaugh (2) (See Profile)
3) Tom Joyner (7) (See Profile)
4) Bob & Tom (3) (See Profile)
5) Michael Savage (6) (See Profile)
6) Dr. Laura (8) (See Profile)
7) Art Bell (4) (See Profile)
8) Bill O'Reilly (13) (See Profile)
9) Larry King (14) (See Profile)
10) Opie & Anthony (16) (See Profile)
11) Sean Hannity (5) (See Profile)
12) Janeane Garofalo (-) (See Profile)
13) Laura Ingraham (28) (See Profile)
14) David Lee Roth (-) (See Profile)
15) Don & Mike (-) (See Profile)
16) Paul Harvey (11) (See Profile)
17) Tom Leykis (12) (See Profile)
18) Kim Komando (-) (See Profile)
19) Mancow (9) (See Profile)
20) Tavis Smiley (29) (See Profile)
- From a Lycos News Release
