re: How I Met Your Mother

There's definitely a generational gap between Friends and HIMYM.

HIMYM has been pretty strong through the seasons so far though last season kind of waned for me, mostly because CBS dicked with the new episode schedule for some unknown reason. They'd show an episode, show two weeks of reruns, trot out two new episodes, then take three weeks off and resume. I assume it was to milk it. This really hurt the show's popularity and last season had the worst numbers so far because of it.

I looked it up and it has nowhere near the viewership of Friends, but there are so many more god damn TV options nowadays that it's not surprising. If you recall, the last two seasons of Friends weren't that great either, especially when compared to its early golden years. HIMYM is having a hard time continuing its early magic as they try to mature each character appropriately. So far they're contracted through season 8, and the way the story's been going it looks like it could end then.