This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah has always been kind of a different place. Peculiar in many ways. And distinctive.
Including our preference in talk-show hosts, if the folks at Reviews.org are to be believed.
The staff at that website teamed with Cabletv.com and, using "Google trends data over the last five years … to see who America searches the most," created a map showing who the most popular talk-show host is in each state.
In Utah, the most popular host is Jimmy Fallon. And Fallon is also No. 1 in … well, no other state. Just here.
Because, apparently, we're big fans of games and skits and fawning over guests. Of goofy behavior and tousling Donald Trump's hair.
Yeah, that's weird.
As you can see in the accompanying map, other states favor James Corden, Piers Morgan, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil, Jerry Springer, Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah. Which is also downright weird, given that Morgan and Winfrey don't currently have talk shows.
"Oprah" went off the air in 2011; CNN fired Morgan in 2014.
Yeah, this map is highly questionable. Evaluating popularity by Google searches is ridiculous — and not just because it's entirely possible that some people are searching Fallon (or any of the other hosts) because they hate him.
Well, if you're searching someone because you hate him it's far more likely to be Morgan than Fallon.
What matters are ratings. And, yes, Fallon does tend to do rather nicely in the local ratings, although Stephen Colbert has done better of late. And it's not unusual to see that more people in this TV market are watching DeGeneres than Fallon.
It's also worth pointing out that, according to Reviews.org, Fallon is favored over Stephen Colbert in 47 of the 50 states — everywhere but Oregon, New Mexico and Vermont.
"Sorry Colbert, you may have won the ratings this month, but you have a long way to go," Reviews.org snarks.
Actually, "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" has beaten "The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon" for the past 14 weeks in a row — three months — and the margin has been growing. Last week, Colbert's lead in viewers was the biggest since he took over for David Letterman in September 2015.