2007: J.K. ROWLING

WHAT WE SAID THEN ''J.K. Rowling is our Entertainer of the Year because she did something very, very hard, and she did it very, very well, thus pleasing hundreds of millions of children and adults very, very much. In an era of videogame consoles, online multiplayer ''environments,'' and tinier-is-better mobisodes, minisodes, and webisodes, she got people to tote around her big, fat old-fashioned printed-on-paper [Harry Potter] books as if they were the hottest new entertainment devices on the planet. Let's also credit her for one more thing. What she spent the last 17 years creating turned out to be completely original.'' —Mark Harris