'SNL' has best premiere since 2001 Fey's Palin impression aid strong start

[Quixote1818]

Anyone know how many millions this translates into?


SNL' has best premiere since 2001
Phelps as host, Fey's Palin impression aid strong start

By Paul J. Gough

Sept 14, 2008, 04:45 PM ET


NEW YORK -- With the surprise appearance of Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin in the opening and gold medalist Michael Phelps as guest host, "Saturday Night Live" logged its best premiere since September 2001.

It was also the most-watched "SNL" for any date since Dec. 17, 2002, when former vice president Al Gore was the guest host.

"SNL" averaged a 7.4 household rating/18 share in the 55 metered markets, Nielsen Media Research said Sunday afternoon. The ratings don't include New Orleans or, this weekend, Houston following damage from Hurricane Ike. Saturday's program was up 64% compared to last year's season premiere on Sept. 29.

Already there was a lot of attention to the show thanks to the guest hosting of Phelps, who last month broke Mark Spitz's single-Olympic gold medal record. But the buzz ramped up even further on the weekend when it was rumored that Fey would be putting in an appearance as Palin, whose sudden emergence seemed likely to be strong fodder for the newly reinvigorated "SNL." There was also a cameo by "Star Trek" and "The Practice" star William Shatner, who had his own well-remembered "SNL" appearance in 1986.

This weekend's "SNL" was the best ratings for any of the shows since Dec. 17, 2002, with Gore and musical guest Phish. The top market was Baltimore, which averaged a 14.7/29, with New York averaging an 8.3/20.

Final ratings will be out Thursday.



Link: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3iebfd8fe8494c12b20a7d9248fc3e2ecd

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. I thought it was very good

[Jennicut]

2. That is great news, everyone can see Palin being mocked for the nutball idiot she is

Funny that Al Gore's episode got a great number as well. Dems are better I guess.

[blonndee]

3. I thought the opener was fantastic and Shatner was funny.

But I fell asleep halfway through the show and didn't think there was a lot more that was that funny. Maybe I missed some good stuff?

[Cha]

4. Rec'd~ I saw that Al Gore

SNL and I saw last night's on DU today..

The Gore SNL helped me a little bit with the coup and last night's was helpful to get more of the reality out on palin since the corporatemediaWhore$ like tom brokaw won't do a damn thing except play with themselves.

[MattP]

5. Worst guest host ever!!

The opening was great and the news was O.k. but Phelps looked like McSame giving a speech, horrible!!

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Wow... That's pretty good.

Late night shows tend to run in the 1 - 3 range on average. I expect that this was the fast nationals and they'll have the finals tomorrow.

[Teaser]

7. the rest of the episode was vomitous

.

[underpants]

9. As usual

I think that is polite laughter or god-I-feel-for-these-people laughter

[Blasphemer]

8. Ratings

A Ratings point = 1.1 million households so that 8.14 million households but I'm not sure how many viewers that translates to on average. Maybe 10 million people? In addition to those that watched will be the "water cooler" talk tomorrow so many more will see it even if they didn't watch SNL.

[ramapo]

10. The show was an embarrassment

The Palin/Hillary opener had its moments...it was pretty good. The rest of the show sucked. Did anybody make it past the first 30 minutes. What were those skits? Just plain awful. Somebody should shoot the show and put it out of its misery.