Shows that are very successful, but only with certain groups

I mean Tyler Perry’s entire empire can fit the description.

Blue Mountain State and younger male audience of that time period. Largely unknown outside of that demographic

Even back in the day, there were show that were mostly popular with certain groups. I’m thinking of the black TV ecosystem. Girlfriends, a different world, living single , the game and so many others were all popular mostly with black audiences. Even shows like Insecure started off being (and are still)primarily popular with black audiences.

I remember how weird I found it when I heard that Everybody Hates Chris is immensely popular in Brazil, since that seems like such a random show to have that level of success - even when it was still airing, I feel like it only ever had a medium level of popularity at best in America. To compare it to another show that had similar numbers of episodes and viewers, it's like if someone told me that everyone in Turkmenistan is obsessed with Raising Hope, I just think "wtf, why"

Procedural shows about detectives will probably always be popular.

Mindhunter. Incredible show and received a ton of praise on Listnook, but I don’t think anyone irl has ever brought it up in conversation with me.

The British Archaeology show *Time Team* (hosted by Tony Robinson, "Baldrick from *Blackadder*") ran on Britain's Channel Four for TWENTY YEARS (1994-2014) quietly accumulating a very loyal audience of history nerds and actual academics who after a several-year hiatus were more than happy to revive the show through Patreon donations. As of today they have over ELEVEN THOUSAND paid members

Kind of the reverse of the examples you mentioned, there are definitely some shows that are super popular in r/television (or I guess among television enthusiasts and critics in general) but are pretty unknown to the general public - e.g. The Leftovers, Halt and Catch Fire, Patriot, Dark, Mr Inbetween

those daytime soap operas. I have no idea what season they're in but they are older than me.

Bones. 14 seasons. Never met anyone who watched it. I'm an elder millennial in NY. Not sure what group of people watched but someone did.

The Expanse.

I think pro wrestling (WWF/E, AEW, WCW) is probably a good example because it's usually popular with a specific & predominantly male audience (today, it's usually perceived that a nerdy/gamer audience is the most popular viewer group), and going back to the era when WCW was around, it was especially popular in the Southern US. You'll hear a lot of pop culture references to it, but outside of a couple of eras (the 80s boom with Hogan/Flair/Andre/Macho Man & the Monday Night Wars with Rock/Stone Cold/NWO/Goldberg), i don't think it's universally popular on a mainstream level

Call the Midwife comes to mind. Everyone I know who watches it is a woman usually an older woman (I say this as a genx woman who enjoys the show). It’s been running for a ton of seasons so it’s clearly doing well.

any show with a majority black cast. the wire appears to be an exception on listnook, but black shows like Snowfall that are good go largely undiscussed on here from what i can tell

Virgin River. 7 seasons on Netflix and still going, but people outside its core demographic have never even heard of it.

Ru Paul’s Drag Race is on the level of the Olympics or the Super Bowl to certain gay communities and built out its own stars and lore but barely scratches mainstream

Babylon 5 and the various older Star Trek shows when they aired.

Does everyone know how good Bosch is? (Look at my username)

Pretty much every show that Listnook likes. They go on and on about Netflix canceling "awesome" shows like The OA and Santa Clarita Diet when in the "real world" no one gives a shit about them.

Read recently that Grey’s Anatomy was renewed. That show has been going for over 20 years but I haven’t heard anyone mention it for at least 15 years now.

I’m not ancient but started watching L&O in early HS and those are now my comfort shows even though they lowkey suck. There are sublistnooks for them with lively discussion but most of it seems to be hatewatching. I actually don’t know any legit old people who watch them. 🤣

Mr Robot. You’ve got to have a high threshold for sitting through gut wrenching mental illness and loneliness. You’ve also got to be willing to listen to computer lingo that you may not understand. Everyone I’ve recommended it to gave up on it in S2

I’m pretty sure the only people who watch Hacks are TV critics and Emmy voters. I’ve never once heard anyone talk about that show IRL and it doesn’t even come up online that often either. Also, Tim and Eric was a hugely popular show with a certain demographic of millennials, namely stoners and other assorted weirdos. My friend group was obsessed with it and we still quote it to each other all the time, to the point that it’s just part of our normal vernacular.

I mean I’d say anime as a collective is probably the nichest yet single most culturally influential type of TV show. It was hugely popular among nerds and defined early internet culture and, by extension, modern internet culture and, by extension, modern real world culture. But most people don’t care about it despite its enormous relative success in the West.

I suspect Heated Rivalry has a majority female audience.

Skins UK was a big hit among teenagers in the early 2010s but I doubt older millenials or gen Z knows anything about it

Back in the late 60s / early 70s, television was very much the “idiot defender of the status quo”, leading to Gil-Scot Heron’s famous announcement that “the revolution will not be televised.” So it’s interesting to take stock of the very few places where the counterculture was able to make itself known in the TV of the time. The most-cited example is CBS’ “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” and its battles with the censors, but there were also cases like the last season of “The Monkees” when nobody at the network was paying attention anymore, so they hung out with Frank Zappa and put him on Saturday Morning TV. Eventually, “Saturday Night Live” broke through in 1975, although the National Lampoon and Second City people behind those shows were more successors to or even rivals of the counterculture, considering how they mocked it on albums like “Lemmings” and “Radio Dinner”. As SNL took off, its ratings were still tiny overall, but it was literally the only TV show watched by the 18-25 demographic of the day, which is prized by advertisers.

Going way back...St Elsewhere had lousy ratings. Every year the network bosses would want to kill it. Every year the sales team would save it. Not many people watched it, but those that did were the affluent consumers advertisers wanted to reach.

My wife an I didn't even start watching NCIS until Zevia was on so we didn't see a lot of the early seasons. It wasn't until we had cable TV that we saw them on re-runs. But really shows like L&O and NCIS are just back ground mostly. The only one we pay attention to is the L&O TO CI, but we are Canadian and enjoy the change to the US ones. BTW we are older. When it comes to Taylor Sheridan, I watched some Yellowstone and Lioness and Landman but over all I don't like the shows. I don't like the way he writes/treats the female characters. My wife likes shows like Elsbeth, and High potential. Personally I'm more in to the sci-fi shows like For all Mankind. But again so much of what we watch is just having the TV on in the background while doing other hobbies. Like right now I have Gold Rush on in the background while typing this.

One Piece is among the hottest and best franchise tentpoles globally while outside of younger internet connected people is nearly obscure in the english speaking world due to the very bad dub that was released first

Andor is probably the most recent example. Most people irl haven’t even heard of it, or discounted it because it’s Star Wars. But many who have watched it consider it one of the best shows ever made.

Game shows like Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, The Price is Right, Family Feud, etc. I watched them avidly as a kid and I’m well aware they’ve all changed hosts within the last 20 years but they fell off my radar into adulthood. Unlike my late grandparents, my own boomer parents and relatives don’t even watch them anymore

i work around a lot of older regulars and they’re obsessed with blue bloods but i almost never see anyone talk about it online which always surprises me

Star Trek. Pick your particular incarnation.

My job is a Landman, and so I get people asking all the time about the show. I guess I should watch it so I could explain how unrealistic it is, but I just don’t want to.

Seinfeld is very popular in USA, but not internationally. At least not as popular as Friends or others. The Taylor Sheridan shows are for the most part copies of each other but with some aspects changed. The Only one that I liked at least in the beginning was Tulsa King but lost interest after season 1/beginning of season 2. They very much appeal to a lot of boomer and gen X men, at least from what I've seen. Euphoria was very popular with late teens/early 20s girls/women during the pandemic. I remember my classmates and some teachers discussing it and really liking it. Which were the target audience, so good job I guess? Marvel shows for some reason aren't appealing to a lot of people. When I recommend them to people they just go ok and move on.

A lot of these are just because the show hasn't been on for 10+ years so the only place to find a discussion about it is listnook. People in real life are watching mostly contemporary shows. Most people know SVU, but almost nobody under a certain age knows OG Law & Order with my man Lenny Briscoe or Criminal Intent which was some of D'Onofrio's best work because it's been decades since it aired and it's not on streaming even if they were huge at the time.

Isn't that true of pretty much every show ever except a small handful of wildly popular shows that had broad appeal? Like even iconic shows like Star Trek only really appeal to relatively small demographics compared to the whole population.

American Dad comes to mind. Seems to be cult status popular amongst SOME millennials but … others never watched it or say “I don’t like Family Guy.” But for the small minority that are into it, it’s like the best show ever created. I think it was the most binged show on one platform… Disney maybe? Anyway, that one always stood out to me as being successful but to a narrow group. People I know who love it…. Love it very intensely

Succession seems more popular than it actual was