War of 18-49 Flashback, Friends (NBC, 1994-2004)

This is a special Flashback edition of the War of 18-49 for NBC's longtime ratings monster Friends, for which I've gotten a lot of ratings requests over the years (at least by my standards). Like with most shows, I have no real 18-49 info prior to the 1999-00 season, and it's spotty even in the first couple years after that, but I figured I should get around to sharing what relatively little I do have. (If you have more than I do, let me know!) Since I have so much less context for most of the time in which Friends aired, I won't weave the epic tale that I do for other series. I'll pretty much just spit out what I have.

Notes: As I said, I have almost nothing in 18-49 from the first half of Friends' run, though this archive of total viewer/household averages suggest the show peaked in season two, gradually lost audience over the next five years, then perked up again in the last three seasons.

The viewership/18-49 high was the post-Super Bowl episode on 1/28/96, which averaged 52.93 million viewers and a 28.2 demo rating. The series finale on 5/6/04 averaged 52.46 million viewers and a 24.9 demo rating.

This was a show that regularly spiked big-time for finale episodes. The "Hi" below in seasons 6-8 and season ten were all for the season finales. Only season nine peaked early in the season (immediately after Rachel having a baby in the season eight finale).

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
6	1999-00	Thursday 8:00	12.62		9.6	16.0
7	2000-01		11.19	-11%	7.3	15.7
8	2001-02		13.04	+17%	10.5	17.0
9	2002-03		11.53	-12%	8.4	16.6
10	2003-04		12.17	+6%	9.0	24.9

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now15	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
8	2001-02	303	megahit	5.09		244	395	367	395
9	2002-03	261	megahit	4.38	-14%	190	375	375	280
10	2003-04	300	megahit	5.05	+15%	222	614	291	614
AVERAGE:		288	megahit
CAREER:		864	icon*

*- This show was upgraded to "icon" based on projected A18-49+ totals from the missing seasons.

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.