Talk:List of most-watched television broadcasts/Archive 3

Beatles on Ed Sullivan 1964?
With the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan, the viewership number of 73 million has been repeated endlessly on many sites. I'm curious about the accuracy of this number, and the ranking of this broadcast, both in total number of viewers, and in the audience share, compared to other highly watched broadcasts.

96.48.58.118 (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

El Chavo Del 8
Probably the most watched show in TV history comes from Mexico. El Chavo Del 8 has about 100 million viewers everyday. Meet El Chavo, The World's Most Famous (And Richest) Orphan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.5.241.3 (talk) 06:56, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

M*A*S*H Vandal
Under U.S. Most watched TV series finales, the number or viewers for "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" is listed as "bullshit". Suggest replacement with something more descriptive, with a reference to the note below the table. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.69.47.121 (talk) 02:15, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

USA - why only series finales?
Why does the U.S. listing only cover series finales? What about other highly rated broadcasts that weren't series finales -- things like Super Bowls, episodes of Roots, The Day After, the Dallas episode that revealed who shot J.R., etc.? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:47, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Unreliable sources, unreliable numbers, zero consistency
Many of these sources are unreliable, leading to unreliable numbers. Also there is confusion with numbers of viewers, percents of viewers and rating points. For example, in the Brazil section, for some shows, it indicate the ratings points received. Others indicate the percent of households the show hit. However, they are all called "ratings". Raw numbers of viewers are not used. The top ranked show, which received 67 points was watched by approx. 4 million people in 1985. It marked as the top show of that season -- perhaps correct -- and as the top of the list of top ranked shows of each year for the past thirty-odd years. The lowest show on the list, Avenida Brasil, which showed last year, captured a rating of 39. This was an average rating and irrelevant. The show captured 60-75% of the viewing group many times. I believe this is around 45-55 million viewers. However, more importantly, the finale was watched by around 80 million people, making it the most watched show of that year, maybe any year within Brazil. And, this show is ranked as the LOWEST in terms of rating on this list. Either the ratings are not all accurate or they are highly misleading due to changing viewership. Seems like this article needs a big overhaul for consistency, accuracy and sourcing. 66.108.246.172 (talk) 03:19, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

U.S. Finales
The Fugitive finale stands as one of the top 3 rated TV shows, population, number of channels, placement of moon notwithstanding.

72% share of the TV audience is significant. I see this number in Wikipedia's The Fugitive (tv series) entry.

Please correct the list at your earliest convenience. Thank you. 73.180.158.205 (talk) 18:18, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Reference for Australian data
I've just added the 2015 AFC Asian Cup to the Australian table. I'm not sure if it uses the same measurement system as the others, since the rest of the section is unsourced. I'm surprised it is higher than our World Cup matches although the WC matches are generally between 11pm-7am. I'd welcome any corrections, references or updates! -- Chuq (talk) 07:24, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I've reverted my edit as per discussion here - - specifically, difference between "metro average" and "total reach". -- Chuq (talk) 05:49, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The Australian numbers are completely inaccurate and make no sense. Accurate sources need to be used and cited. If you consider the population of the country, then the numbers stated are ridiculous. There has never been an Australian TV programme that has reached 20 million. Update: I made changes to the list using known average audiences but it was changed by someone to use "total" viewers for 2 events but keeping the average viewers for the other. This seems to be an apples to oranges comparison, so perhaps two seperate lists should be used. Giuseppe (talk) 05:48, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The all time list came from a single source. I don't have time to fix it now but the list in the article does not match the source. The source's top 10 were: 1 Diana Spencer's funeral 1997 (9, 7, 10, ABC); 2 Wedding of Charles and Diana 1981 (9, 7, 10, ABC); 3 Olympic opening and closing ceremonies 2000 (7); 4 Cathy Freeman's Olympic gold run 2000 (7); 5 Olympic swimming events 2000 (7). 6 LA Olympic opening ceremony 1984 (10); 7 The Sound of Music first TV showing 1977 (9); 8 Boxing: Rose v Rudkin 1969 (10); 9 The World Of The Seekers 1968 (9); 10 Roots miniseries, 1977 (10). Adpete (talk) 01:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Oops, Dale's article has two different (contradictory) lists. The list in the article does indeed match his all-time list, so I'll leave it. The list I quote in the above paragraph is his 20th century list. Adpete (talk) 04:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 February 2015
Super Bowl XLIX was broadcast by NBC, not Fox and this should be edited.

Abram42 (talk) 14:35, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done --  axg //  ✉  ]] ''' 15:47, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Friends "Most watched U.S. TV series per year"
There's "Friends" instead of the rating of 1998/1999

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Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton
In the UK section of special events, it mentions a consolidated figure of 26 million for the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, but excludes it as it's from multiple channels. However, above it, the list seems to contain a number of instances of BBC/ITV broadcasting the same programme at the same time and including figures from both, so I would expect since this section is more about a single event that this should be included in the list? Bob talk 18:40, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Number of Viewers
Since this page is about the most watched television broadcasts, shouldn't we mention what were the most watched TV broadcasts for countries like Brazil, China, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Portugal and South Korea? ~Rajan51(talk) 11:43, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, but they require reliable sources, which aren't easy to gather for some countries -- Whats new?(talk) 05:46, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Then we can add for those countries for which reliable sources are available. ~Rajan51(talk) 07:42, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course, go for it -- Whats new?(talk) 23:06, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

O.J. Simpson Verdict
The O.J. Simpson verdict was watched by 150 million people. Shouldn't it be on the list of most watched? RyanDanielst (talk) 06:15, 7 October 2018 (UTC)