QUICK TAKES - April 4, 2009

Thursday night’s much-anticipated two-hour finale of “ER” was the most-watched wrap-up of any drama series in 13 years, with an average of 16.4 million viewers bidding farewell to the show that was the bedrock of NBC’s once-dominant Thursday lineup.

The last drama finale to score more viewers was CBS’ “Murder, She Wrote” (16.5 million) in 1996.

Still, the “ER” conclusion delivered numbers that were nowhere near record levels. That was partly a function of the audience fragmentation plaguing network TV. Also, drama finales tend to fare less well than closing episodes of hit comedies. The 1983 finale of “MASH” drew an estimated 105 million viewers. More recently, the 2004 goodbye episode of “Friends” was seen by 52 million viewers.

-- Scott Collins