The 40th anniversary of New Year's Rockin' Eve: By the numbers (The Week)

New York ? Lady Gaga headlines this year's installment of the Dick Clark show that made the Times Square ball drop synonymous with ringing in the new year

Raise your champagne glasses: Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve turns 40 this year. The program was first conceived in the early 1970s to attract a younger generation of viewers whose only other option was CBS Radio's annual Guy Lombardo and big-band music broadcast. Now, 40 shows later, the annual special is a?cultural institution, featuring the day's most popular musical acts and attracting millions of viewers around the globe. Here, a numerical look at the venerable show:

82
Iconic media personality Dick Clark's age. He'll co-host this year's show with Ryan Seacrest.

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43
Dick Clark's age when he began hosting the yearly program in 1972

100?
25-watt lightbulbs originally in the Times Square ball ? "a bit dimmer than today's," jokes Lauren Effron at ABC News

22,000
LED lights embedded in Waterford Crystal for 2011's multi-colored ball, dropped from a flagpole atop a skyscraper at 1 Times Square

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About 1 million
People who will pack Times Square to participate in the festivities

18.8 million?
People who watched the broadcast on ABC in 2010 ? more than NBC and Fox's New Years Eve audiences combined

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2000
Pounds of confetti that will be shot into the air in Times Square this year

29
Musical performances scheduled for this year, including Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, and Florence + the Machine

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4
Musical performances on the first show, including Al Green, Helen Reddy, and Three Dog Night

5.5?
Projected hours consumed by this year's broadcast

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Sources: 9News.com,?ABC News, Associated Press,?NYCGo.com, TIME

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