I mean, it's got to level off at some point. I don't think it will ever go much higher than 20 million, but who knows.

As long as its story lines and jokes keep staying fresh (which I personally think the show's still producing some of its best episodes), I don't see reason why its audience won't keep growing.

I think the show is highlarious (only seen three eps), but not captivating enough to demand my full attention, its an interesting scenario. I think I will eventually sit down and watch every episode, Sheldon is awesome.

If that was the criteria for viewer growth, it would be declining. Fast.

I don't even think this site in general hates KJ. I think it's me and two other people. And the numbers speak for themselves.

I'm a fan, but this season has been weak so far - - they couldn't get Howard off that space station soon enough as far as I was concerned.

Same thing with NCIS, outside of the 4, and 5th seasons, though individual episodes did, each season has increased in viewership, and thats in its 10th now. Reruns on USA

Last Season of How I met your mother was its biggest too. It's on reruns on Fx, Lifetime, and 9

Syndication does help though, USA helped NCIS big time, and its reruns are bigger than most of its original programming. Seinfeld still pulls in nice ratings as well, I think its ranked 2 or 3 in reruns. Big Bang Theory has been on TBS the last two years and it's showed. The only issue is the reruns are the first three seasons which while I don't think are still great comedies I can see why some people like it, then they get hooked for the newer seasons.

CBS has just been very smart with finding and audience with their programming in maintaining it. Look at 2 1/2 men, it was actually increasing the last season with Charlie Sheen to about 15 million viewers again, then the fiasco, Kutcher kept the show's audience at least somewhat there, even though it suffered huge drops once the novelty wore off and averaged series lows, now its been able to bounce back now that they don't have to write out of their ass anymore

So BBT just broke its own record, with 19.8 m viewers last night.

Looks like it still has a way to go even higher...

I think the big problem I have with BBT is it ends SO abrubtly and is very unsatisfying almost every episode. Otherwise I think it's enjoyable.

Agreed, they almost always never conclude most of the sub plots and in some cases the main plot of an episode.

Nah, Friends at its peak (2nd season) averaged 31.7m viewers for new episodes and 29.4m viewers for the whole season (including repeat airings in the average). In case you were curious about the rest of Friends run (new episodes | + repeats format):

16.9/26 (24.8m) | 16.6/26 (24.3m) -- 01st Season (#8 Rank)
20.5/33 (31.7m) | 19.3/31 (29.4m) -- 02nd Season (#3 Rank) (Ross & Rachel)
17.5/29 (26.3m) | 16.7/28 (25.0m) -- 03rd Season (#4 Rank)
16.9/28 (25.0m) | 16.4/27 (24.1m) -- 04th Season (#4 Rank)
16.5/27 (24.7m) | 15.7/26 (23.5m) -- 05th Season (#2 Rank)
15.2/25 (22.6m) | 14.0/23 (20.7m) -- 06th Season (#5 Rank)
14.2/23 (22.1m) | 13.1/21 (20.2m) -- 07th Season (#5 Rank) (Went up against Survivor)
16.5/26 (26.7m) | 15.3/24 (24.5m) -- 08th Season (#1 Rank) (Rachel Pregnancy)
15.2/24 (24.0m) | 13.8/22 (21.6m) -- 09th Season (#2 Rank)
16.8/26 (26.9m) | 14.4/23 (22.8m) -- 10th Season (#3 Rank) (Average buoyed by finale)

Source: http://newmusicandmore.tripod.com/friendsratings.html

You can make the argument that BBT is more impressive because as big as Friends' numbers were they were just symptomatic of the 90s ratings landscape and for most of its run it played third fiddle behind ER and Seinfeld (and sometimes Frasier) as the top rated network broadcast and then Survivor and CSI later in its run.

If we want to talk about all-time ratings juggernauts, though, nothing is touching Idol. Only other contenders are Cosby Show (which could reach 60m viewers for regular episodes) and All in the Family. Those two had the record for most years as the #1 show with five apiece while Idol had a run of 8 seasons as not just the #1 show but also occupying the #2 slot as well, simultaneously, and last year it was still #2.

Friends had 25 episodes with 30m+ viewers (most from that second season in 95-96). I lost the list I had that kept track of the amount Idol had, but it was absolutely ridiculous for a show in the 00s and had fair number of episodes over 35m+ viewers, even, and that's even factoring in the hemorrhaging of network viewership that occurred the past decade. The number of episodes Idol has had that were 25m+ and 20m+ viewers is absolutely staggering as well.

As much as I dislike the show, I can't deny how hugely popular it is. It's challenging NCIS for highest-rated scripted series.

Mockery of geek culture and it gets nothing right?

So what! That's why it's funny. Stereotypes are there to be laughed at. If you want a factual representation of geek culture then don't watch a 30-minute sitcom.

You know comedy is subjective, right?

http://empirenews.net/jim-parsons-quits ... set-fight/

Hopefully they end the show. It has been crap for years now.

Nevermind. I just realized Empire News is one of those sites that make up news stories beacuse they think they're funny.

Empire News is the worst. A really bad parody of the Onion.

Is that article supposed to be funny? I was at least expecting that the punchline would be along the lines of Galecki believing himself to be the bigger star over Parsons because he's in the most beloved Christmas classic of all time.

The Big Bang Theory also blows my mind. Before it started averaging 15-20 million viewers an episode, I heard nothing but positive things about it. But now that it is very popular, I hear nothing but bad things about it. It seems that every popular broadcast sitcom that gets good ratings (Modern Family, TBBT, most other Chuck Lorre shows) are considered overrated tripe while things NBC's sitcoms, FOX's sitcoms and things like Selfie and The Middle are so underrated and charming and great.

"Modern Family" is actually good though.

This is shit.

If there's a backlash against the show finally, then good. I've seen some mediocre programs score big before, but this takes the mediocre cake.