During the Great Shut-in of 2020 I've been working on organizing my Cher stuff. Mind you I haven't done this since before I moved to LA, which was in 2002. So I've got a mess of stuff from the last 18 years! I'm finding some good lost things about which I will surely blog.
This is the first article I pulled out, "Heres to the Death of Broadcast" by James Poniewozik (Time Magazine). There's a breakout box in the article called "The Small Screen Get’s Smaller" and it depicts percentages of households watching CBS prime-time benchmark shows over the decades.
Although it stops in 2008, it's a fascinating comparison between what The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was getting in comparison to American Idol.
| Years | Most Popular Show on CBS | Percentage Watching All Networks |
| 1952-53 | I Love Lucy – 67% | 75% |
| 1962-63 | The Beverly Hillbillies – 36% | 55% |
| 1972-73 | All in the Family – 33% (S&C were at most 20-23%) |
56% |
| 1982-83 | 60 Minutes – 26% | 51% |
| 1992-93 | 60 Minutes – 22% | 37% |
| 2002-03 | CSI – 16% | 22% |
| 2007-08 | American Idol – 16% | 18% |
See the decline? Which has undoubtedly increased now with our streaming TV options like Netflix. Even though The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and other Cher-related shows of the 1970s weren't in the top 5, they were still drawing more people than today's most popular shows.
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