BUNKER BUSTER: What is the most watched American television show of all time?

What is the most watched American television show of all time?

I Love Lucy is an American sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 1951 to May 1957 with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons. The series starred Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, along with Vivian Vance and William Frawley and follows the life of Lucy Ricardo, a young middle-class housewife living in New York City who often concocts plans with her best friends and landlords Ethel and Fred Mertz to appear alongside her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo in his nightclub. It was first known as The Lucille Ball–Desi Arnaz Show and later in reruns as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. It was based on the American radio and television program My Favorite Husband.

After the series ended in 1957, a modified version of the show continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials which ran from 1957 to 1960.

I Love Lucy became the most-watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons and it was the first to end its run at the top of the Nielsen ratings.

As of 2011, episodes of the show have been syndicated in dozens of languages across the world and remain popular with an American audience of 40 million each year.

A colorized version of its Christmas episode attracted more than eight million viewers when CBS aired it in prime time in 2013, 62 years after the show premiered.

Seinfeld is the only show to hold the record for most American television viewers in history with 34.10 million. I Love Lucy had 13.73 million viewers in its first year, 15.29 million in its second year, 15.14 million in its third year and 17 million in its fourth year.

As such, it is often regarded as one of the most influential television programs in history.

In 2012, it was voted the Best TV Show of All Time in a survey conducted by ABC News and People magazine.