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Thirty percent of the audience—or a 30 share, in broadcast jargon—is usually considered respectable. A share is the percent of the people watching television who are tuned in to a show. It indicates how well the show is doing against the others in its time slot. If the people in 50 million households are watching TV on Thursday night at 8, and 25 million are tuned in to Mork & Mindy, the program would have a 50 share. A rating, on the other hand, is the percentage of all the 74 million households in the country that have TVs, whether the sets are turned on or not. Since it is assumed that each TV household consists of an average two viewers at any one time the set is on, each rating point is equivalent to a viewing audience of about 1,500,000 people. On that hypothetical Thursday, for example, Mork & Mindy's rating would be 33.
Roots: The Next Generations did not quite repeat the astonishing success of Roots I, but the seven episodes nonetheless knocked out everything that CBS and NBC ran against them. On Night 1, the show got a 41% share, beating American Graffiti (33%) and Marathon Man (28%). On Night 3, it pulled its biggest audience, 50% of all viewers, against two more movies. In the next three segments it slipped a couple of points, but still dominated the numbers.
The only surprise came at the end. In terms of quality, the final episode of Roots II was the best, with stunning performances by Al Freeman Jr. as Malcolm X and Marlon Brando as George Lincoln Rockwell. As ratings go, however, it was a disappointment. Night 7, ABC got only 40% of the audience, compared with 32% for CBS's Celebrity Challenge of the Sexes, a kind of all-star potato sack race, and 30% for yet another yodel of The Sound of Music on NBC. Still, helped by its old-time serials and the great new hit of the season, Mork & Mindy, ABC, with Roots II, achieved the second-highest-rated week in television history, surpassed only by the week Roots I was aired in January 1977; indeed, an estimated 110 million people watched all or part of the sequel.
As the sweeps ended last week, the networks counted their gains and losses, only to find that, as in a World War I battle, hardly any real estate had changed hands. All three were almost exactly where they had been on Feb. 1. ABC's position is so strong that the competition can huff and puff and threaten to blow its house down with expensive movies and miniseries, but for the foreseeable future it is likely to stay where it is—on top.
The week that Roots II aired, ABC had the top eleven shows in the country, with Mork & Mindy scoring higher even than the Haley saga. On an ordinary week during a nonsweeps month, it has six of the top ten shows: besides Mork & Mindy, there are Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, Eight Is Enough, Charlie's Angels, Happy Days and Taxi. CBS usually struggles through with three in the top ten: All in the Family, M*A*S*H and 60 Minutes. NBC has only one, Little House on the Prairie.