• by Wayne Friedman , December 21, 2011

Top-rated TV shows like "American Idol" generally will be the top show when it comes to consumer search engine requests. But some surprises continue to make any end-of-year TV search list.

That's what InfoSpace's Dogpile, a meta-search engine, determined for 2011. Others on its top 10 list included: "Dancing with the Stars" in second place, "NCIS" in fourth place and "Glee" in fifth.

But there were also two syndicated shows in the big list.

While the search "Oprah" rang up a sixth-place nod -- no doubt due to her last season on the job after 25 years -- perhaps the most surprising spot went to "Dr. Oz" in third place. Dogpile says it was the first time the Sony Television show made the list. One guesses the high results came from a rise in daytime viewers looking for further medical/health information.

NBC's "Today Show" was another non-prime-time show in the mix, good for seventh place. NBC's new singing competition show "The Voice" was in eighth place, among all those consumers searching TV shows in 2011.

Fox's fall singing competition show "X Factor," just now completing its first season,  came in ninth. CBS' summer reality "Big Brother" was 10th.

When looking at TV/radio news networks/programs, the most searches in 2011 came for "CNN News." Fox News was next, followed by "Nancy Grace" and "60 Minutes." Dogpile says the next-most-searched show was Sirius XM's  "The Howard Stern Show," followed by "NBC Nightly News," "The Dave Ramsey Show," "Anderson Cooper 360," "The Daily Show" and "The Rachel Maddow Show."

Dogpile compiles search results from Google, Yahoo, and Bing, among others. Its results are compiled from hundreds of millions of queries.

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