The 50th anniversary celebration of Saturday Night Live (SNL) attracted impressive ratings, bringing in gold for the network. The live SNL50: The Anniversary Special on Sunday drew a massive audience of 14.8 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, making it NBC’s biggest primetime entertainment telecast in five years. This audience size is second only to the Grammy Awards on CBS earlier in the season, which drew 15.4 million viewers.
In the key ad-sales demographic of adults 18-49, SNL50 scored a 2.53 rating, equivalent to approximately 3.39 million viewers in that age range. This marks a significant five-year high for the network in primetime, excluding sports.
The special evening featured a red carpet special that averaged 6.5 million viewers on NBC, E!, and Peacock, leading up to the main show. The SNL50 show itself included reprisals of favorite sketches, a heartfelt musical number from Adam Sandler, and performances by various artists such as Paul Simon, Sabrina Carpenter, Miley Cyrus, Brittany Howard, Lil Wayne with The Roots, and Paul McCartney.
Comparing this year’s SNL50 with the show’s 40th anniversary special a decade ago, the former drew 14.8 million viewers while the latter drew 23.1 million viewers on NBC alone. However, it is worth noting that the landscape of television has changed significantly since then, with linear TV being the dominant mode of viewing. Despite this, SNL continues to captivate audiences and pull in impressive ratings.
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