There were definitely alot more tvs in homes in the 80's then you're thinking

atleast half the north American population barely watch cable anymore.

.... I don't even know what to say. You're like 'well the 80s had TVs too you know!' and then immediately acknowledge that I'm completely right in pointing out the completely different landscape of today's media. You think I'm saying there weren't a lot of TVs in the 80s? Because I feel like that was never remotely said ot implied. All I implied is that the pervasiveness of mass media is much higher today. More families have a TV today than in the 80s, on top of that, each individual in the house also likely has their own personal screen to consume all sorts of media on. Because of this, there is SO MUCH MORE MEDIA TODAY THAN BACK THEN. That was the main point. Not 'no one watched TV in the 80s'. Its just that there are so many more TV shows being made today as well as also having the enormous backlog of every TV made already, and the entirety of the Internet, that there is no way a cable television show would ever even remotely capture that high percentage of an audience again. Which makes it a relic of a statistic, that is basically meaningless in todays world. Its a nice bar trivia fact and that's it. The last episode of MASH was the most watched cable non sports television program in the US on a single station.