‘Saturday Night Live’ Scores Strong Ratings In Return With At Home Edition
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TV viewership have been booming amid coronavirus-related Stay At Home orders, and NBC’s Saturday Night Live last night caught the ratings wave, proving that people are looking for laughs as the pandemic continues to ravage the country.
In its return to television after more than a week off, Saturday Night Live at Home, with material produced remotely as SNL cast and crew practice social distancing, drew a 4.6 Live+Same Day household rating in the 44 local metered markets and a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating in the 25 markets with local people meters. That is despite the fact that NBC did not announce until several hours before the telecast that it will air live on the West Coast as has been the case for SNL’s regular episodes in the past couple of seasons.
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The numbers for the show, which drew lukewarm reviews, were way up from the most recent SNL original on March 7, hosted by Daniel Craig with musical guest The Weeknd, which drew a 4.1 household rating and 1.6 in 18-49.
Last night’s SNL, which featured host Tom Hanks, following his coronavirus recovery, in stripped down duties opening and closing the show and musical guest Coldplay’s Chris Martin, averaged a 1.46 rating in Live+Same Day adult 18-49 rating and 6.662 viewers overall, according to “fast official” Nielsens.
This is the season’s #2 highest-scoring edition of Saturday Night Live, behind only the Dec. 21, 2019 blockbuster Christmas edition hosted by Eddie Murphy and featuring musical guest Lizzo (2.50 in 18-49, 9.986 million viewers overall). Excluding the highly rated Eddie Murphy-hosted episode, last night’s show was up double-digits from the averages of the other original telecasts this season.
Versus primetime programming on the Big 4 networks last night, SNL is easily the #1 show of the night in 18-49 and total viewers, more than doubling all Big 4 primetime shows in 18-49.
A large portion of SNL viewing is done online. The most popular videos from last night on Sunday morning are Hanks’ opening monologue and the Weekend Update phone interview with Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump.
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