More than 3 million people watched the final episode of "Mad Men." Can you guess what nearly twice as many people — some 6.4 million — watched that same night? Two colorized episodes of a 60-year old sitcom, "I Love Lucy," which in its day was a smash hit.
"When 'I Love Lucy' was at its peak, on a really big night, it could have an audience of 70 million people," said Bob Thompson, professor of TV and pop culture at Syracuse University. "Mad Men," by contrast, only pulled in around 2 million viewers an episode. But "I Love Lucy" has endured for decades after — in syndication.
"When we were kids we saw 'I Love Lucy,' Andy Griffith and 'The Brady Bunch' because it was constantly there," Thompson said.
For reference, Thompson grew up in the '60s and '70s. If you want to understand just how important syndication has been, consider that story of a man named Brady.
"'The Brady Bunch,' for example, was never in the top 30 when it aired on television," Thompson said. "It became an iconic part of the canon to this very day and that happened through reruns."
But unlike I Love Lucy, you won’t be seeing reruns of "Mad Men" on TV. And there are a few reasons for that. For one, hourlong dramas — even critically acclaimed ones from Dallas to Moonlighting to the Sopranos — have traditionally faired poorly in syndication. Thompson says it’s precisely because of what makes them great: complexity.
"If you happen to stumble upon episode six of season four of 'Mad Men,' you’re not going to have any idea what’s going on," he said. "This is a show that required a commitment. To understand one episode, you have to know what had happened before."
By contrast, oldies like "I Love Lucy" and "Mr. Ed" — and broad comedies like "Three's Company" and "Gilligan’s Island," where you can drop in at any time and understand what’s happening, have been juggernauts for decades in syndication.
"When I was growing up in Australia we used to get all sorts of weird shows," said John McDuling, who covers the corporate world, including the TV business, for Quartz. "Just really old stuff."
McDuling grew up in the '80s and '90s.
"Like 'I Love Lucy' would be on afternoons in Australia, 'Hogan’s Heroes,' 'My Three Sons,'" he said. "It was a different world, those shows used to stick around for years and years."
McDuling says that he watched them not necessarily because he loved them, but because they were the best of a limited number of choices. Those days, of course, are now long gone.
"These days you’re more likely to be recommended it by Netflix or Amazon Prime's recommendation algorithm or online, there’s still tremendous discussion of these things online," he said.
That’s why AMC sold "Mad Men’s" exclusive syndication rights to Netflix. Thompson says this makes sense. He points to "Hill Street Blues" in 1981 as the beginning of what he calls our current “second golden age of television.” Chock-full of ambitious shows like "Mad Men" that he says are a direct result of the VCR, and later the DVR and Digital On-Demand, which allow us to watch and rewatch them carefully and critically.
"Television could only get really, really good when it was able to be put on a shelf, like a book," he said. "And that didn’t happen until the age of the VCR."
And so, like "Moby Dick" on the library shelf or Beethoven’s 9th on Spotify, "Mad Men" is now at millions of people’s fingertips anytime they want it on Netflix. The only catch? They’ll have to choose to seek it out.
"Some of these shows — 'Breaking Bad,' 'Mad Men,' 'The Sopranos' — some of them are going to end up being classics, like 'The Godfather' or 'Citizen Kane,'" Thompson said. "But we can’t really predict which ones of those will be. I would have thought that about 'Hill Street Blues' when it came out, and while it remains really important, it’s not something that people watch a lot."
In one of "Mad Men’s" final episodes, Peggy Olson told Don Draper that she wanted to “create something of lasting value.” And perhaps that is what creator Matthew Weiner and his Mad Men team have done. Then again, Don once counseled Peggy about the importance of moving forward: “It will shock you how much it never happened.”
