[fbdab103]

The most live viewers of a TV episode was the season finale of MASH in 1983[0] with 106 million.

Unless the population rises to a trillion, it seems hard to imagine there will ever again be so much cultural consciousness directed towards a single show. I do not even know what is on broadcast TV any more.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televisio...

[mr_toad]

Less than half the population. So you could pick a random person and say they probably didn’t watch the most popular TV episode.

[sph]

Remove toddlers, homeless and old people that believe watching TV is a pastime for kids. How many shows today are watched by half the 18-50 population?

I reckon a thing that happens to 50% of the population is as culturally widespread as if it had happened to 100% of it. Because it means one talking to another about it means you hear about it everywhere, since a conversation requires 2 people.