Back before cable TV, when there were only 3 television networks, no streaming, no YouTube, etc, shows would easily get 10-20x the audience sizes they do today. But, compared to the stuff produced today, those shows mostly had cheap sets and few locations.
With lower costs and way more viewers, were those old networks literally swimming in money? Or was something majorly different?
Did advertisers pay substantially less? Did actors get paid more? How did the economics work?
In: 5
Your premise is wrong.
Where on Earth did you get 1/20 as many viewers from?
Cheers was always either the #1 or #2 watched TV show in the world at its time.
It averaged about 30 million viewers per episode.
In contrast, Stranger Things season 4 averaged 200 million viewers per episode.
Even the least popular episode of Virgin River (a rather middling-popularity show by today’s standards) got more viewers than the average episode of Cheers.
You can generally expect shows today to get 10 times *more* viewers than they would have in the days of network TV.
*And* advertising dollars are a lot higher now (targeted ads pay more than broadcast ads).
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