A <I>Survivor</I> Tops <I>EW </I> Power List
The man who gave the green light to summer television's guilty pleasure, Survivor, topped Entertainment Weekly's annual list of the most powerful 101 people in show biz.
CBS President Leslie Moonves "outwitted, outlasted and outplayed his network rivals," the magazine said.
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Fifty-one million people watched the final Survivor in August. The show was not only enormously profitable, it was the first entertainment program in years to bring a significantly younger audience to CBS.
Producer Mark Burnett, already at work on Survivor II in Australia, was No. 81 on EW's list.
The magazine's top 10 includes a teen-aged newcomer: Shawn Fanning. The creator of the song-sharing service Napster "started a music revolution bigger than Elvis and the eatles combined," Entertainment Weekly said.
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was No. 5, praised for getting children to read.
Others in the top 10 include Dreamworks SKG partners Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris, Miramax Films chief Bob Weinstein and actors Bruce Willis and Tom Hanks.
The magazine's closely-watched list "is like a tech stock," said Maggie Murphy, EW assistant managing editor. "Today, this is how it will be ... in five weeks, it might be different."
The magazine created a separate "titans list" this year to separate corporate deal-makers. On top of that list was the executive team of Steve Case and Gerald Levin, who will head AOL Time Warner if that pending merger is approved.
What does a game show craze get you? No. 28, where Who Wants to Be a Millionaire host Regis Philbin landed on the list for the first time.
"What's important to remember is that he's ahead of the guys who hired him at ABC," Murphy said.
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