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Thanksgiving is a time for many to gather with family and friends over a hearty meal — and to watch some beloved TV shows.
Oftentimes, the most popular TV sitcoms will include at least one episode dedicated to Thanksgiving. That’s whyUSDISH set out to determine the most popular TV episodes and shows during the holiday season. Its team figured out the most popular holiday episodes since 1990, and used data from IMDb to find the episodes with more than 1,500 IMDb votes, a rating of at least 7.5, and other criteria:
“After narrowing down our list, we (1) compiled the viewership count for each episode’s premiere using the viewership archive on TV Listings and (2) ranked the premieres from most to least views. To find out the relative popularity of these shows during the most recent holiday TV season, we analyzed Google Trends data on these shows for each state during Nov. 2020, Dec. 2020, and Jan. 2021.”
USDISH found that comedy and romance were hit genres for Thanksgiving content,” with 14 of the 15 most popular Thanksgiving specials falling under either or both categories. The report also found “Thanksgiving is the perfect season for a little throwback TV,” and that “average running time of all the Thanksgiving holiday episodes on our list is 24 minutes, which is about how long it takes to make Grandma’s green bean casserole that you never eat each year.”
So, which Thanksgiving show is the most searched in Illinois? Seinfeld, according to the USDISH findings. See the full report here.