In a post last month about photos from a collection of “M*A*S*H Bash” photos from the night of the finale, I said that was the final post in a series celebrating the 41st anniversary of “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” on February 28. I was mistaken. This week’s post is the final post in that series! The previous posts in the series have featured a M*A*S*H Bash benefit for MDA, a TV Guide article by Alan Alda, and a set of photo collages promoting the finale.
After “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” aired on CBS on the night of February 28, 1983, the network and legions of M*A*S*H fans waited for the final Nielsen ratings to be released with the rating and number of households that viewed the finale. The previous record was held by the infamous “Who shot J.R.?” episode of the CBS series Dallas, which aired in 1980. Would M*A*S*H, another CBS staple series, beat the record of a 53.3 set by Dallas? Within a few days, the official ratings were released by Nielsen, and the M*A*S*H finale broke the record! The media pounced on the story, and in this week’s post, we look at an article that broke the news of M*A*S*H‘s record breaking audience to the public.
The finale of M*A*S*H was heavily publicized, and the materials provided to the press by Fox and CBS both made it clear that the series would end with the end of the Korean War. Shows in the 1970s and 1980s didn’t typically “end” in such an abrupt way because networks were afraid that if the show had a true end point, the public would not be interested in watching the show in syndication. This has not been the case for M*A*S*H, of course, but I believe that the final episode feasting the end of the Korean War attracted the interest of people who didn’t necessarily watch the show from week to week. They didn’t want to miss out on the cultural phenomena that “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” was becoming.
M*A*S*H was solidly a top-10 show in the Nielsen ratings for the majority of its 11 seasons. M*A*S*H‘s popularity coupled with its longevity, set it up for a finale unlike any other. So when the Nielsen ratings were released on March 3, 1983, every news outlet grabbed the story because M*A*S*H didn’t just break the record set by Dallas a few years earlier, it smashed it with a rating of 60.3. In his article, author Bill Collins writes about the M*A*S*H finale’s rating in comparison to the previous record holder. The 60.3 rating is impressive, but that does not provide context for most people. The staggering stat about the M*A*S*H rating is the fact that 77% of households watching television that night were tuned in to the finale. The attention attracted by “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” was beyond what many had expected. What’s even more impressive is that the rating set by M*A*S*H has never been beaten and likely never will due to the segmentation of linear television. (Note: The number of viewers estimated to have watched M*A*S*H, 125 million, has been beaten by several Super Bowls in the last decade. This is due to the increase in the United States’ population. However, the rating figure and percentage of households tuned in are numbers that have not been matched since.)
Nielsen still tracks ratings today, but their research has gone beyond linear television. They also track ratings for online streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Max. This is the reality in today’s entertainment ecosystem. There are no longer three channels. Cable television, streaming platforms, YouTube, and TikTok all vie for our attention, and more choice means fewer viewers for each channel or service. Shows today have more to compete with, and there is a good modern example for comparison. The Big Bang Theory ended in 2019 after 12 seasons on CBS, and its finale garnered a rating of 3.1 with 18 million viewers, and this was considered a solid rating in today’s television market environment. This is what makes the M*A*S*H finale unique. Airing in 1983, it had the good fortune of ending before cable television took off and long before the era of streaming. It’s record as the highest rated scripted television show stands, but it’s overall rating and percent of households watching are numbers that will likely never be beaten or matched again.
The M*A*S*H Historian 