Discussion/question about worldwide tv habits

You’re goddamn right.

Game of Thrones was a global phenomenon. And it's the biggest show of all time when it comes to how widely it was discussed during its run. Prison Break had a huge fan base here in Iraq and the Middle East. Friends and How I met your mother both had fairly big fan bases.

Bold & the Beautiful has or at least had a surprisingly strong international market as a half-hour soap focused on the fashion industry, especially in countries like Italy and France. I think it's a huge reason it's still alive. Some primetime soaps like Dallas, Beverly Hills 90210, and Desperate Housewives also enjoyed some international success for similar reasons. Friends as someone mentioned was one of the more popular comedies, but before them, Honeymooners was an early international comedy success. One surprise international hit show was Kojak, and some crime shows like NCIS continue that tradition. That said, I remember reading that part of why CBS kept SWAT on longer over SEAL Team (though they moved the latter to Paramount+ at the end) was action shows with crime units like SWAT tended to perform better internationally than a series that had a U.S. military team, like SEAL Team. Less surprising might be that pretty people running around beaches or GTL'ing might translate with shows like Baywatch and Jersey Shore doing well.

Most American shows are dubbed into other languages and broadcast in many countries.

Most popular American shows will be popular round the world too.

I just remember Namjoon from BTS talking about how he learned English from watching Friends.

CSI was pretty big in the UK and Ireland. In fact, it was solely the main reason a lot of people (my folks included) even watched Channel 5 at all.