In the early 60s there were roughly 50 million households with TV. A top 10 show would see numbers in the 13-20 million household range. That could easily compute to 40+ million viewers for the #1 show if you assume 2 people watching every set. But ratings are more about the percentage of households watching than raw numbers. In the 90s there were still shows that got ratings in the 18-20 million houshold range but the number of households had risen to almost 100 million. The networks haven't seen increases in total households for decades as their audience has been fragmented by other entertainment venues. Because of that their share of the audience has shrunk even though they've kept relatively the same number of physical viewers. 40 million viewers in the early 60s could have meant a share of 50% or higher. If what was meant on that episode was *households* and not *viewers* then it would have been a 80% or higher share, huge even for that decade. Yes, any network show that could pull that off today would be a huge hit.TravisR said:I was just watching an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show where they said that The Alan Brady Show (which Rob/Van Dyke works for) was seen by 40 million people. I'm going to guess that was a pretty good sized audience back in the early 60's but if a show averaged 40 million viewers today, it would be the biggest hit in decades.