The average Nielsen rating listed for I Love Lucy’s second season is 67.3.
That figure refers to the 1952–53 television season, when I Love Lucy ranked first among U.S. primetime programs. The show’s second season followed its breakout first year and included landmark episodes such as “Job Switching,” commonly remembered for the chocolate-factory sequence, and the story of Lucy’s pregnancy and Little Ricky’s birth.
A Nielsen rating measured the percentage of television households tuned to a program. A 67.3 rating therefore represented an extraordinary share of the TV audience by the standards of the early 1950s, when television ownership was far lower than today but viewers were concentrated among a much smaller number of major networks.
The nearby figures can cause confusion. The 50.9 number belongs to the 1951–52 season, while 58.8 belongs to 1953–54. The 67.3 figure is specifically associated with the 1952–53 season and is often cited as the highest average season rating achieved by a television series.