Intelligent default weighting process for criteria utilized to score media content items

A system and method are provided for intelligently, or programmatically, assigning weights for one or more criterion utilized to score media content items based on an analysis of a group of media content items. In general, scoring criteria to be used to score media content items for a user are defined. A group of media content items associated with the user is then analyzed with respect to the criteria to provide results such as a number or percentage of media content items from the group of media content items that satisfy each of the scoring criteria. Based on the results of the analysis, a weight is assigned to each of the scoring criteria. Thereafter, media content items are scored for the user as a function of the weights assigned to the scoring criteria.