Lewis: It’s down to football
With the Super Bowl here, I’ve been thinking about how football has become a unicorn in American TV — minus the sparkly horn and a whole lot of shoulder pads. In 2023, a whopping 72 of the top 100 most-watched television broadcasts in the United States were football games. (Yes, 72. No, that’s not a typo.) The remaining 28 were mostly politics (like presidential debates), a couple of awards shows, and a smattering of other sports. Not a single scripted TV show made the cut.
Where did all the mega-hit shows go?
Flash back to the 1970s and ’80s, when series like “M*A*S*H” were pulling in astronomical numbers. Its final episode in 1983 drew 106 million viewers — over 60% of all U.S. households. That’s like half the country collectively crying into their TV dinners. The finale for “Seinfeld” in 1998 snagged 76 million viewers, and even by 2004, “Friends” closed out with a still-impressive 52 million. But after that, crickets. Since 2005, no scripted show has broken into the top 20. All of our most-watched series aired between 1967 and 2005. So … what happened?
Two big plot twists
First, we had an entertainment explosion. Once upon a time, TV had only a few major channels. Now, we have more streaming services than we can count, plus YouTube, TikTok, and that neighbor who won’t stop posting “how-to” videos on homemade kombucha. There’s an endless buffet of content competing for our eyeballs.
Second, we changed the way we watch. We used to plan our evenings around TV schedules — now we binge entire seasons on a lazy Sunday or stream them in five-minute increments on our phones. But football? You still need to see it live — nobody wants to watch a big game after they’ve already seen the score in a tweet.
Even movies aren’t safe
And guess what? Even the most-watched movies tend to be from the last century. We might still line up at theaters for the latest blockbuster, but when it comes to televised events, older classics dominate. Apparently, we’re nostalgic for a simpler time when we only had one remote to lose between the couch cushions.
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Our fragmented pop culture
All this content has changed how we share cultural moments. There’s no single show — like “Cheers” or “The Cosby Show” — that absolutely everyone is watching. Now, half of us are rewatching “The Office” for the 37th time while the other half is obsessed with obscure K-dramas or true-crime docuseries. That means we have fewer universal references to bond over. On the bright side, at least you won’t have to worry about your neighbor spoiling the season finale of that random indie show you found on some niche streaming platform.
Touchdown for football
So here we are: football is pretty much our only guaranteed watercooler conversation. It’s the last big pillar of “must-watch-live” TV. Star quarterbacks are more likely to become America’s biggest celebrities than your average actor or singer. Don’t believe me? Check your social media feed this weekend — it’ll be flooded with highlights, even if you follow nothing but cat meme accounts.
Is it good or bad?
Honestly, I’m not sure. Part of me misses the days when I could drop a “Seinfeld” reference and watch everyone nod in agreement. Now, half the people in the room stare at me like I just made a fax machine joke. (Which I guess I did — hello, 1990s!)
But hey, at least we still have football to unite us … until the commercials come on and we’re all too busy rating them like amateur advertising critics. So if you can’t connect over old sitcoms, you can always complain about the refs. Because no matter what era you grew up in, we can all agree that the ref always misses the obvious call.
Mark Lewis, a Colorado native, had a long career in technology, including serving as the CEO of several tech companies. He’s now retired and writes thriller novels. Mark and his wife, Lisa, and their two Australian Shepherds — Kismet and Cowboy, reside in Edwards.
