...the highest-rated half-hour of television ever originally aired. "The Giant Jackrabbit" was and is still the highest-rated episode of The Beverly Hillbillies ever, as well as any other sitcom. Its Nielsen rating was 44.0, with a share of 65, and it was the highest-rated of several episodes of this series which are still among the top 100-rated tv programs of all time, quite an accomplishment.

...the highest-rated half-hour of television ever originally aired. "The Giant Jackrabbit" was and is still the highest-rated episode of The Beverly Hillbillies ever, as well as any other sitcom. Its Nielsen rating was 44.0, with a share of 65, and it was the highest-rated of several episodes of this series which are still among the top 100-rated tv programs of all time, quite an accomplishment.

Not the highest rated, but the most watched. There's a difference. The highest rated show of all time was the "Lucy Goes to the Hospital" episode of I Love Lucy in 1953, which had a 71.8 rating and a 92 share. But with that huge rating, the Lucy episode didn't have as big of an audience as The Beverly Hillbillies because there were only a total of 20 million homes with television in 1953 versus 52 million in 1964. So 71.8% of 20 million is 14.36 million (number of homes watching Lucy); 44% of 52 million is 23 million (number of homes watching Hillbillies). The record number of viewers has been broken a number of times since 1964, partly because the number of total television viewers has continued to grow. Go to this link and you'll see the purported all-time top 100 rated shows.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2009/03/21/top-100-rated-tv-shows-of-all-time/14922/

I say purported because this list is apparently not all inclusive as I see nothing prior to 1961. And like I mentioned, those Lucy ratings are the highest, and higher than anything on this list. In fact, Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theatre in 1950-51 (61.6 rating for the season), and I Love Lucy during 1952-53 (67.3 rating for the season), regularly got higher ratings than the top show on this list. So for some reason, they're ignoring the first decade of television.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings

Again, though, while these shows got the biggest ratings they did not have the biggest audience (which goes to shows like the last MASH) because there were so relatively few homes with television sets that early on.

Not the highest rated, but the most watched. There's a difference. The highest rated show of all time was the "Lucy Goes to the Hospital" episode of I Love Lucy in 1953, which had a 71.8 rating and a 92 share. But with that huge rating, the Lucy episode didn't have as big of an audience as The Beverly Hillbillies because there were only a total of 20 million homes with television in 1953 versus 52 million in 1964. So 71.8% of 20 million is 14.36 million (number of homes watching Lucy); 44% of 52 million is 23 million (number of homes watching Hillbillies). The record number of viewers has been broken a number of times since 1964, partly because the number of total television viewers has continued to grow. Go to this link and you'll see the purported all-time top 100 rated shows.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2009/03/21/top-100-rated-tv-shows-of-all-time/14922/

I say purported because this list is apparently not all inclusive as I see nothing prior to 1961. And like I mentioned, those Lucy ratings are the highest, and higher than anything on this list. In fact, Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theatre in 1950-51 (61.6 rating for the season), and I Love Lucy during 1952-53 (67.3 rating for the season), regularly got higher ratings than the top show on this list. So for some reason, they're ignoring the first decade of television.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings

Again, though, while these shows got the biggest ratings they did not have the biggest audience (which goes to shows like the last MASH) because there were so relatively few homes with television sets that early on.

Yes, I failed to make a couple distinctions in my earlier statement. First of all, the Nielsen rating system changed in 1960, so all shows from prior to 1960 were rated under a different system. The shows from prior to 1960 seemed to show much higher ratings than 1960 and forward. Also I meant to state that this BH episode was the highest-rated HALF-HOUR sitcom episode ever. The final MASH episode was a movie-length 2 1/2 hours.

I went through the same "TV by the Numbers" list and was very surprised to learn that one of the BH episodes on that list was an in-season rerun. The episode run on January 29, 1964, "Elly Becomes a Secretary", was originally aired in S1 on May 22, 1963, which makes this episode possibly the highest-rated rerun ever, not counting movies rerun for television (in this case, Gone with the Wind is one example).