‘Saturday Night Live’ Ratings Slip, Stay Strong With Host Bill Burr

Last night’s Saturday Night Live, hosted by Bill Burr with musical guest Jack White, drew a 4.7 household Live+Same Day rating in the 44 metered local markets and a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating in the 25 markets with local people meters.

That was off double-digits from last week’s season premiere (5.6 HH rating, 2.9 in 18-49). Still, last night’s delivery was the third highest since Nielsen changed their methodology after SNL‘s Season 45 opener last fall, only behind the blockbuster Eddie Murphy-hosted holiday 2019 episode (6.7, 3.4) and last week’s Season 46 kickoff. That should be expected as the month leading to a presidential election is traditionally big for SNL.

Versus primetime programming on the Big 4 networks on Saturday, SNL was easily the #1 show of the night in both metered-market households and in 18-49 in the local people meters, topping the #2 program, ABC’s Miami-Clemson college football by +62% in households and +38% in 18-49.

A large portion of SNL’s viewership comes from delayed and multi-platform viewing. Last week’s season premiere has already more than doubled in 18-49 rating with delayed digital and linear viewing, growing by +101% to a 3.70, and has added +4.8 million viewers overall to 13.0 million.

Besides the VP Debate cold open, featuring Jim Carrey’s Joe Biden as the debate’s infamous fly, Burr’s talked-about monologue, Kate McKinnon’s Dr. Wayne Wenowdis skit and the Trump-themed opening segment of Weekend Update, also doing well online are two off-beat pre-taped videos from last night, a Samuel Adams Pumpkin Ale commercial, which got the approval of Judd Apatow, and Beck Bennett’s Enough Is Enough digital short featuring Jason Momoa.

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