Quite interesting to see that almost everything on this list is from the 1970′s to the early 1990′s. This list is strong evidence of the fracturing of the TV audience in recent years.

There really is no “big event” television anymore in this era of internet, youtube, hulu.com, DVR, etc. The era of entire families and neighbourhoods sitting down to watch a non-sporting event TV show, like the Dallas season premiere is over!

(PS: I thought the Survivor finale from 2000 would have made the list)

The way the superbowl pulls people in is the way internet content and tv advertising is probably going. The advertising has to be almost “permission marketing” in that people don’t find it invasive and it needs to be delivered in such a way that it is part of the whole experience.

Anyway, good list Bill. (I also like that Super Bowl XX—Da Bears!—was one of the highest-rated, even though it was a blowout.) It certainly reflects the times that even though there are shows that garner more viewers these days, the ratings are about the percentage of homes watching the show. That’s why more recent Super Bowls are further down the list, even though they may have had more pure numbers; there are so many other choices for people, and so many more households have both multiple TVs and satellite/cable.

That was a good suggestion to come up with lists from the respective decades. (For those lists, feel free to filter out sporting events.) It would be interesting to see what was highly rated and what wasn’t.

However, that 29.8 rating in 2004 means Friends was seen in 32.3 million households. Looking at the second list, it was seen in more households than all the programs below Roots Pt. III (31.9 million households).

Some other totally pointless numbers:

*Michael Jackson Interview on ABC, 1993: 39.3/56 or 36.5 million households
*Highest rated episode of ER: Season Four finale, May 14th, 1998, 28.8/45 or 28.21 million households
*Highest rated episode of Survivor: Season One finale, August 23rd, 2000, 28.6/45 or 28.7 million households
*Final episode of The Cosby Show: 28.0/45
*Second half of the Joe Millionaire first season finale: February 17th, 2003, 21.8/29 or 23.244 million households
*Final episode of Home Improvement: 21.6/34
*Final episode of Family Ties: 21.0/35
*Highest rated episode of American Idol: Season Five finale, May 24th, 2006, 20.5/32 or 22.564 million households
*Highest rated episode of American Dreams: 9.2/15
*Highest rated episode of Jericho: 7.6/12
*Highest rated episode of Chuck: 5.6/9

Oh, television. So many numbers.

If you look at the billions of Seinfeld repeat episodes on TBS and in syndication, you could probably DVR it. It’s on so much, every day, that the finale is bound to show up sooner or later!

That being said, the two most interesting things on this list are the 13 showings of the Beverly Hillbillies, and the World Series game 6 from 1980, where my Philadelphia Phillies won their first World Series title. I wonder why, if they got such great ratings from a Kansas City/Philadelphia WS in 1980, why did the Tampa Bay/Philadelphia series this past season do so poorly? Plus, as talked about before, the Beverly Hillbillies must have been super popular to make it on this list a total of 13 times. If a show is popular, normally a finale shows up, but to have 13 shows of a series show up is amazing.

Nope, just looked it up – I’m wrong. But partly that’s because Family ran for nine years and overlapped Laugh-In that started earlier. And I never watched Family after I left home in 1972 whereas I did watch Laugh-in.

But Family definitely spurred a new direction in sit-coms all by itself.

And don’t forget the spy shows! Man From U.N.C.L.E., Girl From U.N.C.L.E., Wild Wild West (a Western spy show and a damn good one, too!), The Avengers, I Spy, Mission Impossible, etc. Those were my favorites.

The way I look at it, we live in TV eras defined by the No. 1 broadcast show. The timeline I can remember (and I’m 53) went from Gunsmoke to Bonanza to Beverly Hillbillies to Laugh-In (big cultural shift there) to All in the Family to Happy Days to Dallas to Cosby Show to ER to Seinfeld to Friends to CSI to American Idol. That’s just off the top of my head — I’m sure I missed some or got them wrong!

Not really. LOL. This was long before cable TV came into every household in America. At the risk of dating myself, in the 1960′s there were only the big 3; CBS, ABC and NBC. Not too much competition in those days.

As for Miss America, I do remember the days before cable (I was very young) when my Dad would make a major event out of the night. Gather the family, make popcorn, and pick your favorites, kids! It was the 70′s at that point, when I know womens’ groups were making major waves about pageants so focused on a woman’s looks. But still, Miss America seems so innocent compared to the weekly reality sleaze of today…oh, and Dad made big deals out of the Oscars, Grammys, and Olympics too. Without cable, any once-a-year (or less) event was a major event I guess ?

Not really useful including the Superbowl in such lists since it skews the results so badly.

Derek – That was sarcasm, right?

Makes sense since most if not all the list would have consisted of 1950′s shows if that decade was included.

little Ricky’s birth on “I Love Lucy” had a 71.7 rating in 1953, Elvis on Ed Sullivan a 82.6 rating in 1956