The ratings are out, and this year’s Super Bowl was a blockbuster with 90.7 million viewers in the U.S., making it not only the most watched Super Bowl in a decade, but the most watched TV program since 1996.When you think about the changes in technology over the past ten years, you begin to understand why no other program has come close to those numbers. The first Tivo device didn’t roll off the assembly line until 1999, but it –along with scores of new cable channels, DVDs, satellite TV, video-on-demand, video over IP, and portable video devices — have now transformed and fragmented the TV playing field so much that the traditional “major TV event” has almost disappeared from the landscape.

 The ratings are out, and this year’s Super Bowl was a blockbuster with 90.7 million viewers in the U.S., making it not only the most watched Super Bowl in a decade, but the most watched TV program since 1996. 

When you think about the changes in technology over the past ten years, you begin to understand why no other program has come close to those numbers.  The first Tivo device didn’t roll off the assembly line until 1999, but it –along with scores of new cable channels, DVDs, satellite TV, video-on-demand, video over IP, and portable video devices — have now transformed and fragmented the TV playing field so much that the traditional "major TV event" has almost disappeared from the landscape.    For just one example of this decline, check out the ratings for the series finale’s for some of the most popular TV comedies over the past 20+ years.  The all-time record for a series finale was set by M*A*S*H in 1983 with 105.9 million viewers.  Ten years later, the Cheers conclusion was able to draw just 80.4 million, and in 1998, the Seinfeld finale pulled just 76.3 million viewers.  By 2004, only 52.5 million viewers tuned in for the last episode of Friends, and last year, just 33 million watched Everybody Loves Raymond’s farewell — a drop of more than 70 million viewers from the M*A*S*H sendoff.   These days it takes a major live event like the Super Bowl to draw a large, real-time viewing audience, which may mean that news and sports are the only Tivo-proof content on the planet.