We’re not sure if it was Tina Fey’s dead-on, pitch-perfect portrayal of Sarah Palin, or the wunderkind with eight gold medals in one Olympic games, but the peacocks at NBC are delighted either way. Actually I am pretty sure it was Tina Fey, but we’d need to see the ratings for just the first 15 minutes to say that definitively. Averaging a 7.6/18 (household rating/share) after 11:30pm would make any network happy these days though so it doesn’t really matter. Below is the press release with NBC’s spin on the ratings performance, but if you haven’t already seen it (and even if you have), you’ll probably enjoy Tina Fey as Sarah Palin more than the press release:
‘SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’ SCORES ITS HIGHEST SEASON-PREMIERE OVERNIGHT RATING IN SEVEN YEARS
SOARING 64 PERCENT ABOVE YEAR-AGO RESULTS, ‘SNL’ DELIVERS ITS BIGGEST SEASON OPENER SINCE 2001
WITH HOST MICHAEL PHELPS, MUSICAL GUEST LIL WAYNE AND A SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY TINA FEY, ‘SNL’ TOPS ALL ITS TELECASTS, PREMIERE OR OTHERWISE, SINCE 2002
BURBANK, Calif. – September 14, 2008 – The 34th season premiere of “Saturday Night Live” has delivered the show’s highest overnight rating for a season debut since 2001, according to metered-market household ratings from Nielsen Media Research.
Last night’s telecast was hosted by Olympic swimming sensation Michael Phelps and featured musical guest Lil Wayne, with a special appearance by Tina Fey, portraying Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, as well as a cameo by William Shatner. The telecast averaged a 7.4 rating, 18 share in 55 markets metered by Nielsen, with New Orleans excluded and Houston subject to revision.
This is the top-rated “Saturday Night Live” season debut since September 29, 2001 (7.6/18), with a telecast hosted by Reese Witherspoon and featuring musical guest Alicia Keys, the first “SNL” original after the attacks of September 11. Last night’s program is also the highest-rated “SNL,” premiere or otherwise, since December 14, 2002 (7.5/17), with host Al Gore and musical guest Phish.
Versus the year-ago season premiere (4.5/11 on September 29, 2007), last night’s edition of “Saturday Night Live” was up 64 percent in the metered markets.
The top-rated markets in the country for last night’s “SNL” were: Baltimore, 14.7/29; St. Louis, 12.6/25; Oklahoma City, 11.0/21; Indianapolis, 10.7/23; and Nashville, 10.7/21. “SNL” scored an 8.3/20 in the New York market.
National ratings and demographic results for last night’s “Saturday Night Live” are due from Nielsen on Thursday, Sept. 18.
SNL = not funny at all. Lil Wayne = no musical talent – Duke Ellington is turning over in his grave
I watched SNL and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin was easily the best thing on the show Michael Phelps may have won 8 gold medals but he really SUCKED last night his comedy was really bad as were the rest of the SNL skits they better hope they can get A-List hosts and Tina Fey to show up most of the season or this show will go from highly rated to record lows
yes… SNL is in danger. you nailed it joseph. after 30 years.. and almost every single one of those years loaded with people like you complaining how the show is not funny anymore… you’ve finally got it. NOW it’s not funny. NOW it’s in danger. after 30+ years… you are a genius… in all my life SNL has apparently never been funny NOW, currently, at the moment… whenever that is. it wasn’t funny to people in 1983, 1984, 1985, 86-2008. SNL has always been “used to be funny” like “it sucks now but it used to be funny a few years ago.” i’m not sure how that works… how could it always have been “used to be funny” when it’s never actually been funny? the eddie murphy years (people complained) phil hartman years (people complained) mike meyes (complained) will ferell (complained) tina fey (complained)… blah blah blah. so now in 2008… SNL sucks. but what’s interesting is that 5 years from now the 2008 edition is going to be remembered as being good and the 2013 edition is going to suck. man… SNL in 2013 is horrible. skits run too long. opening sketches are silly. musical guests have no talent. and bringing back amy poehler to play president hilary clinton is just a poor stunt that’s not going to work in the long run.
tom, I’m with you all the way. SNL appeals to its age demo, for everyone else, including those who *used* to be in its age demo, it sucks.
Although the Fey/Poehler opening on Saturday was hilarious, the rest of the show *sucked*.
This will date me instantly, but after all these years I still love the Bass-O-Matic.
I’ve been watching SNL for almost 10 years now, and the recent peak of the show was obviously from around 2000-2003. I’d love to see the 1/2 hour numbers because I bet the dropped by more than 50% from first half to last half. The cold open was fantastic – inspired, and there were a few laughs here and there, but otherwise, it was a really, really bad season premiere. And I’m 27, so I’m not out of their demo. Phelps was simply awful – perhaps the worst host I have ever seen. He came off as mildly retarded, 8 gold medals or not.
I thought SNL was hilarious Saturday night – well, at least the first 5 minutes were. I don’t remember laughing that hard at an SNL scene in years – If you didn’t know better, you would have thought it really was Sarah Palin standing there – she probably played her best performance in that scene alone than she has in any other guest sopt on the show. My favorite part – when Hilary was talking, and Palin started posing to the cameras-LOL. Can’t get much better than that.
With the exception of the Palin/Clinton opening skit which was very funny (even if it was a little unfair to Gov. Palin), SNL has come to stand for “So Not Laughing”.
I only like a couple of the current cast members. There are some I don’t care if they stay or go and 3 or 4 that I really can’t stand and wish they’d leave, including that ridiculously annoying Andy Samberg (or whatever his name is) guy.
I still just shocked at how perfect tina fey as palin was!! The voice!!
I didn’t see this. But I saw the opening sketch…that was funny. But after watching this show my whole life(I was born in 1975) and suffering through 2 or 3 unfunny years of a show I once dearly loved I finally gave up in ‘05(I think it was). I have vivid memories of every era starting with Eddie Murphy(I liked the previous eras as well). And each successive era got funnier to me. Culminating with Will Ferrell/ Molly Shannon/Cheri Oteri/ Ana Gaystier/Chris Kattan/Horatio Sanz/Tracy Morgan/ Maya Rudolph/ Tina Fey etc….that was SNL at it’s funniest to me. I knew things were in trouble when Jimmy Fallon became the new big man on set. And when Will Ferrell left I lost almost all interest in the show. I only held on because I thought Amy Poehler was funny and maybe Finese Mitchell…and I wanted to think that SNL had just hit a rough patch…but every week it was painfully obvious that the funny was not there. I plan on watching next week; I’ll give it another chance maybe they will surprise me but with Amy Poehler leaving for NBC’s and all of TV’s best comedy franchise The Office all signs point to suck. Coincidentally, that last time I watched SNL was when Rainn Wilson hosted. Thankfully, they put the Office parody at the beginning, because, besides that, everything else was horrible…so all I had to do was watch it peripherally know the Office parody sketch had already happened.
I write this to take serious offense at the SNL broadcast last Saturday (Sept. 20, 2008) after I heard of the line in that broadcast that intimated that Todd Palin was “doing his girls.”! How dare you slur another person in your feeble attempt to gain ratings! This is beyond outrageous, it is slimy, filthy, and beyond the lowest point of anything that could claim to be “funny.” Politics aside, even if you are a dyed-in-the-wool liberal socialist Democrat, this is beyond what decent human beings should be subjected to. No wonder our younger people are so filthy in their conversation, being exposed to this low-class type of communication, on top of the polluted ideas and concepts of much of their music.
Just so you know, my family and I gave up television altogether over two years ago, and have benefited by using the time for more useful pursuits. We have a set, but only view selected movies and videos. You think you are providing entertainment, aimed primarily at the younger set, and they may actually believe they are being entertained. What a pity,that you influence those who vote with this insulting crap that masquerades as humor, that you use this foul-mouthed stuff for ratings!
None of you people know what real humor is. The fact that this sort of sleaze is becoming more prevalent on television is worse than sad, it is deeply discouraging. Surely if your writers are so brilliant they can be humorous without sinking into the sewer. You are not doing anyone any real service with this stinking mess. You are polluters of our world.
This example makes me wonder about the perception you are spreading that people from distant parts of our country, in rural or frontier areas, are less that civilized. My son and his family lived and worked in Sitka, Alaska for years. He served 20 years on active duty in the U.S.Coast Guard, then worked for the USCG in Alaska, and is still employed as a technical specialist in North Carolina. He also worked with the DEA undercover in South America, and was trained along with Navy Seals to become a Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer. Along the way he acquired the equivalent of a college education, and most of his work for the USCG today is as a technical writer. He has been to Antarctica, to Iceland, and worked in deep sea diving off the Atlantic coast. He is a good father to five wonderful children, whom he taught all about the wildlife and the great nature in Alaska. They went salmon fishing, then preserved their catch the same way that the Alaska native have for centuries before our forefathers ever set foot on the East coast.
He taught his sons to handle kayaks,and to refurbish boats; they hunted and trapped small animals. My grandson earned money for his first guitar by selling pelts of fur animals he trapped to a Canadian firm, then went to Utah and performed with that guitar in an important jazz festival for his school in Sitka. My daughter-in-law has an associate degree, and experience working in banks. She has home schooled four of their children. My son now spends part of each year teaching survival techniques to associates of the National Science Foundation who go to Antarctica each year to conduct research on wildlife and climate there. People from Alaska or what you clowns probably refer to as “fly over country,” are not ignorant, or sex perverts, or any of the worn out low-class things you may wish to play word games with on your stupid program. And from reading other comments, I am not the only one who sees the “skits” as mostly not funny.
The point is you that do no one any favors by trying to be funny with those grossly unfair characterizations of people from Alaska, small towns, or those who do not share your preference for city life, and scummy big city so-called “humor.” You should be ashamed of your selves. Your writers of that particular line should have their minds cleaned out and their word processors confiscated until they undergo some kind of mental catharsis. Your network should have to face harsh judgement, and no doubt will before they ever see the face of God.
I watched the Republican Convention on my computer, and saw the delegates’ reaction to NBC when Governor Palin said she was not there to please the media. Hooray for her. If you ever feel motivated to truly serve the needs of this wonderful country, maybe you will review you program standards, and even your
political preferences. You are a disgrace to the very ideal of journalism and to the field of entertainment. I am so glad I eliminated the toxic waste of television programming from my life.
Sincerely.
Who is the “you” you are referring to, Suze? Certainly no one here, as no one here has any hand in coming up with what is aired on SNL or any other show.
Julia, word of Robert’s omnipotence is beginning to spread.
Ah, yes, I forgot. I suppose he, at least, is thankful that this long rambling message wasn’t left on his voicemail.
:-X
SNL HAS GONE DOWN THE TUBE. What a great show this once was. Nothing funny about this show, writing is terribel to say the least. D