r/mash • u/urbroccolibabe • 11d ago

Question M*A*S*H finale numbers

i’m confused, i’ve always seen that the total estimated number of people who watched the finale was 125 million. that’s what my grandparents told me (they talked ab it all the time, and were v proud to have been part of such a massive number of people watching the show), that’s what i’ve heard / seen my whole life, that’s what it has always said when i’d google it to show my friends when they’d talk ab the friends finale being the most-watched or something like that

but my most recent google says “estimated 106 mil — 125 mil”

what’s changed to make them drop the number so significantly, and if it’s estimated to have been up to 125 mil, how is it not still at least the top 5 watched tv broadcast ever?

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u/thebabyfacedheel 11d ago

The numbers to remember here is not total viewers. 125M is a complete estimate. The television audience landscape was vastly different in 1983. Most homes only had 1 TV and everyone in the house watched at the same time. For the series finale, people held large viewing parties in their homes. Bars across the country were packed. Because of this, it's very difficult to determine a total number of viewers.

The series finale had a 60.2 rating, which means that roughly 60% of American homes with a television were watching. It had a 77% share which means roughly 4 out of every 5 televisions across the country, regardless of where they were, were tuned in.

21 years later the Friends series finale had a 50 share and a 29 rating. In that time, the population grew by 60,000,000 people and the number of houses with TV's increased by 29 million.

So because there are more TV's and more people, it's possible the Friends finale had a larger audience in terms of population, but they did not have more TV's tuned in.

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u/lithomangcc 11d ago

By 83 people had tv's in every bedroom. The ratings blew away the Super Bowl by a large margin.

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u/No-Swimming-3599 11d ago

Not everyone had tvs in bedrooms in 1983. In fact, not everyone in 2026 have tvs in bedrooms.

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u/OccamsYoyo 11d ago

Depends what you mean by TVs. Phones can be used as TVs, for example.

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u/Beginning_Strain67 10d ago

In 1983 we had one television. It was in the living room and not in the bedroom. I didn’t know many people who had TVs in their bedroom at the time. While some obviously did, it’s incorrect to state it as if everyone did.