Saturday Night Live returned to production with a special remote episode that was shot from the homes of the cast of the long-running late-night sketch series saw solid results with the experiment.
SNL, which is one of many shows that shuttered production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 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. This is proof that people were looking for laughs as most have been honoring the stay at home orders that have been implemented in several states nationwide. The special at home telecast averaged a 1.46 rating in Live+Same Day adult 18-49 rating and 6.662 viewers overall. The episode featured material produced remotely as SNL cast and crew practice social distancing.
So how does it rank with episodes so far this season? This is the season’s #2 highest-scoring edition of Saturday Night Live, behind only the December 21, 2019, 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. The episode featured host, Tom Hanks, following his coronavirus recovery, in stripped-down duties opening and closing the show and musical guest Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
Every show doesn’t have the luxury of doing this but I happened to watch the SNL episode and I thought they all did quite well, especially considering this had to be put together fairly last minute. People needed to laugh and SNL answered the call and did so with class and wit.
