47. Cecile Frot-Coutaz

There are cynics aplenty in the reality TV genre, but Frot-Coutaz isn't one of them. "I'm passionate and I care -- about the shows, about people," she says. The people care back: "American Idol" ended last season with a 32 million-viewer finale, and NBC's "America's Got Talent" dominated the summer with 12.6 million sets of eyeballs weekly. This year, Frot-Coutaz has doubled Bertelsmann subsidiary Fremantle's U.S. revenues from the $177 million the parent company reported in 2005 and has gussied "Idol" up with a fourth judge for its coming eighth season. In 2009, she'll concentrate on shoring up the company's strengths in the face of the industrywide slowdown. "It's harder and harder to get good ratings," she says, but she has faith in the audience. "It's about getting people to connect emotionally with the content -- whether it's making people laugh or cry or care. It's what we do: We emote. Our job is to create emotions."