It’s staggering to believe that one show, “I Love Lucy,” once drew 2 out of every 3 viewers in America. Every week.
That shared experience is extinct. The closest thing we have to it now is Wednesday’s “American Idol” finale, which will be lucky to have a third of the percentage of “Lucy.”
Oh, we’re watching more TV than ever — more than 1,500 hours per person in 2004 alone — but the ever-increasing number of available channels has fragmented the audience.
Even “event television” doesn’t bring us together as much anymore. Ratings for this year’s Oscar telecast were up slightly – but only 23 percent of U.S. households tuned in.
That doesn’t begin to compare with the period from 1976 to 1987 that produced 16 of the top 20 rated TV events of all-time, including the “M*A*S*H” finale (60.2 rating) and the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode of Dallas (53.3). In fact, only two of these events have been in the past 20 years.
So, while some of us may worship “Idol,” almost all of us loved “Lucy.” Those days, like the rabbit-ears antenna, are gone forever.