By the numbers: No. 1 for every medium
While Nintendo's Wii grabs most of the media buzz, the 8-year-old PlayStation 2 is still 2008's most played video system in America, in terms of actual minutes used. That was one of several interesting stats that came out of Nielsen's top ten of everything list for 2008. Here are some highlights:
Top television series: "American Idol" (Tuesday) with 15.5 percent of homes tuning in. Idol's Wednesday followup got second place with 15.3 percent of homes.
TV's top "timeshifted" series: "Heroes," which gained 35 percent more viewers if you counted those who viewed episodes up to seven days after their original airing.
Top televised event: The Super Bowl, which snagged 43.1 percent of homes. The post-game show held on to 30.1 percent, making it No. 2.
America's favorite TV ad: The NFL's spot where "Ephraim Salaam describes how Chester Pitts became an NFL player." Here's the ad:
TV show with the most product placement: "Biggest Loser" with 6,248 occurrences. No. 2, American Idol, only used three-quarters as many. No. 10, Hell's Kitchen, used less than a third as many product placements.
Biggest ad budget: Procter and Gamble, which spent $2,342,319,397 on traditional media advertising spots, more than double most of the runners-up.
City with the most people spending $500+ online: Washington, D.C., with 39 percent of adults ringing up a bill. The national average is 25 percent.
Top website: Google and its many offshoots (YouTube, Gmail, etc.), which reel in 120,498,000 unique users a month. Yahoo (flickr, del.icio.us, etc.) was close behind with 114,872,000.
Top website viewed via cell phones: Yahoo Mail, with 15,249,000 unique users in October. That's 30 percent more than No. 2 Google search.
Top mobile phone: Motorola RAZR V3, with 9.3 percent of subscribers. The top smart phone is Apple's iPhone, which hit No. 4 on the general list with 1.5 percent.
Top cell phone ring tone: "Lollipop" by Lil Wayne, according to Billboards Hot RingMasters.
Most downloaded song: "Low" by Flo Rida.
Most listened to song on the radio: "No One" by Alicia Keys. Her album, "As I Am" topped Nielsen's album list.
Top adult nonfiction book: "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle, which also was the No. 1 audio book.
Top adult fiction book: "The Shack" by William P. Young.
Top box-office movie: "The Dark Knight," which raked in $530 million. Three superhero movies made the list, with "Iron Man" hitting No. 2 ($318 million) and "Hancock" reaching No. 4 ($227 million).
Top DVD and Blu-ray: "Iron Man."
Most played video game console: PlayStation 2, with 31.7 percent of gamers' time spent playing it. The much newer Xbox 360 made No. 2 with 17.2 percent of minutes played.
Most played computer game: "World of Warcraft," with players putting in more than 11 hours a week.
