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Americans love talk show hosts – and have for a long time. Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, John Stewart, and a whole string of others have made fortunes with a desk, a sofa, a monologue, a band, a sidekick and an endless parade of guests.
In our most recent Engagement IQ, we included Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon and they blew the doors off our Engagement IQ numbers.
With Engagement IQ Indexes of 46.1 and 42.0, they supersede the previous celebrity champs Taylor Swift (37.0) and Katy Perry (33.5) and place just above The Rock (41.2). (We’ll be analyzing the Rock’s appeal soon.)
Ellen and Jimmy achieved their high EIQs doing exceptionally well being associated with positive engagement metrics and not being associated with negative ones.
Specifically:
Perhaps, this is a comment on the role of talk shows in today’s society. These highly appealing personalities provide content that shapes opinions.
The President of the United States and the next Speaker of the House might look to talk show hosts for clues on how to be more popular. Their poll numbers (Gallup: President’s approval = 48%; Congress’s approval = 14%) indicate they could benefit from being more engaging.
The President may have the advantage.
With a little rearranging of the oval office, he could have a sofa next to his desk, the Vice President as his sidekick and the Marine Corps Band, if they would loosen up a little bit and practice their rim shots.
Maybe Timothy Leary was not tripping out on LSD – or maybe he was – when he said, “In the information age, you don’t teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today, he’d have a talk show.”