Goodbye, Farewell and Amen Ratings Analysis

The final episode of M*A*S*H, the movie-length "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen," aired on February 28th, 1983 following months of intense press coverage. One thing the media focused on was whether or not ratings for the last episode of M*A*S*H would break records. By 1983, numerous high profile television events had reached new ratings heights: the episode of Dallas in which J.R. Ewing's shooter was revealed; the blockbuster miniseries Roots; the annual Super Bowl.

As most television fans know, "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" garnered a huge Nielsen rating (Nielsen Media Research has provided audience ratings since the early days of the television industry) and was seen by tens of millions of people. But just how many people watched the entire episode? Is "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" still the highest-rated television program of all time? The program with the most viewers? Read on.

Introduction to Television Ratings

Broadcast television lives and breathes by television ratings, which track how many people are watching certain programs at any given time. When television was in its infancy, there was no good way to determine the number of viewers, although rough estimates could be made by trying to get viewers to call or write, proving they had seen an advertiser's commercials. During the 1950, the A.C. Nielsen Company emerged as one of the leaders in television market research. Today, the company that provides television ratings is called Nielsen Media Research. Other groups historically involved with television ratings included Arbitron and Trendex.

Simply put, the Nielsen ratings track how many television households (or homes) are watching a particular program. This is accomplished through the use of two numbers: the household rating and the household share. In 1983, Nielsen estimated that there were 83,300,000 television households in the United States, so one rating point (or one percent) equaled 833,000 homes. If a program had a rating of 10, some 8.3 million homes were watching that program. Currently there are over 110 million television households.

The household share is the percentage of television sets in use at the time a certain program was on the air. Therefore, it is not a fixed number but a percentage of a constantly changing television universe. A program with a 15 share was watched by fifteen percent of television sets in use at the time.

"Overnight" Ratings

There are multiple sets of ratings information provided by Nielsen. One set is called the overnight ratings (or overnight metered market ratings) These ratings come from the cities with the largest number of television households. Overnight ratings from six cities are available for "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" (ranked by household rating):

Nielsen Overnight Ratings
City Rating
San Francisco 63.7/82
Detroit 57.5/73
New York City 56.4/72
Chicago 55.4/72
Los Angeles 51.6/68
Philadelphia 51.2/70

And here are the Arbitron ratings from those same cities:

Arbitron Overnight Ratings
City Rating
San Francisco 58.3/76
Philadelphia 54.0/65
Chicago 49.6/65
New York City 49.3/66
Detroit 44.7/57
Los Angeles 43.5/63

So, according to Nielsen, in San Francisco, 63.7 percent of the total television universe in the city and 82 percent of the sets in use at the time were watching "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen." Arbitron put the numbers at 58.3/76. By comparison, the penultimate episode of M*A*S*H ("As Time Goes By," originally aired on February 21st, 1983) drew an overnight Nielsen share of 38% in Chicago, 26% in New York City, and 23% in Los Angeles. Thus, the final episode saw a huge increase in the percentage of television sets in use watching M*A*S*H.

However, the overnight ratings only capture part of the picture. The national ratings encompass the entire television universe in the United States, not just those households in specific cities.

National Ratings

Nationally, "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen"recieved a 60.2 rating and a 77 share. That 60.2 ratings translates into an estimated 50,146,600 homes (833,000 X 60.2) which can be rounded up to either 50.15 million homes or 50.2 million homes. Either way, more than half of all the television households in the United States were watching M*A*S*H -- and 77 percent of all televisions in use from 8:30PM to 11:00PM were tuned in to CBS.

The number of viewers who watched "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" depends on which measurement you look at. The total audience -- the number of people who watched all or part of the two-and-a-half hours -- clocks in at 121,624,000 million viewers. However, the total audience counts viewers who watched as little as six minutes of the finale. The average audience -- the number of viewers who were actually watching during the average minute of the finale -- stands at a somewhat lower 105,970,000. In other words, while close to 106 million viewers watched the whole two-and-a-half hours of the finale, an additional 15 million watched at least six minutes.

For some reason, the number usually given for how many people watched the finale is 125 million. This erroneous figure may stem from an article in The New York Times published in March of 1983 that gave an "estimated total audience of 125 million people." The correct number is 121.6 million.

Records Kept and Broken

When the finale originally aired in 1983, it broke all sorts of records. Prior to "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen," the highest-rated television program had been the November 21st, 1980 episode of Dallas (commonly known as the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode, the actual title is "Who Done It?"), which pulled a 53.3/76. M*A*S*H beat that handily. It also set the record for the most television households to watch a single program (50.15 million homes), the largest audience (105.9 million viewers) and the largest total audience (121.6 million viewers). The one record that M*A*S*H failed to break was the largest share of the audience to watch a single program; Super Bowl X on January 18th, 1976 drew a 78 share, beating "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" by a single share point.

In the decades since M*A*S*H drew to an end, only one of the records it set in 1983 has been broken. The total audience of the 1986 Super Bowl was 127.1 million viewers. However, the number of potential viewers grows every year due to population increases in the United States, so a larger total audience tuning in to something like the Super Bowl was only a matter of time. Currently, the record total audience stands at an impressive 148,300,000, set by Super Bowl XLII in February of 2008 on FOX.

The other records still stand, at least in terms of single telecasts and within the United States. Globally, there have been several events seen by hundreds of millions of viewers, including the 1969 Moon Landing and the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. And within the United States, telecasts that are shown on multiple networks -- like the O.J. Simpson verdict -- have been seen by more people than the final episode of M*A*S*H.

As a single broadcast, "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" ranks above all others. And given the increasingly splintered television universe -- with so many cable channels and so many options for viewers -- it seems unlikely that many of the remaining records aside will ever be broken. Due to the fact that the population in the United States continues to grow, and thus the number of potential viewers also increases, there is a very good chance that eventually some program -- most likely a Super Bowl -- will average more than 105.7 million viewers.

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Last updated February 5th, 2008