Saturday Final Nationals: ‘Saturday Night Live’ on NBC Delivers Eight-Year Season Premiere Ratings High

ABC dominated Saturday prime time with “Saturday Night Football” which featured a matchup of two teams from the Associated Press top-5, No. 3 Louisville at No. 5 Clemson with Clemson prevailing 42-36 in a thriller. The game’s opposing quarterbacks are contenders for this year’s Heisman Trophy: Louisville’s Lamar Jackson and Clemson’s Deshaun Watson.

Louisville-Clemson ranks as the second most-watched game of the current college football regular season to-date, behind the 11.09 million who watched or streamed Notre Dame-Texas (on ABC or WatchESPN) from Sep. 4. ESPN reports a streaming average minute audience of 200,000 viewers for the game as well.

The top ten markets for Louisville-Clemson were: Louisville (24.9 local rating), Greenville, S.C. (20.1), Columbus, OH (14.4), Birmingham (14.0), Nashville (11.7), Charlotte (11.6), Atlanta (11.0), Knoxville (10.9), Jacksonville (10.7), Dayton (10.5).

In late night, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” opened its 42nd season to its highest season-debut total audience in eight years, according to “live plus same day” official national viewing figures from Nielsen Media Research. The Sept. 13, 2008 telecast, which was hosted by Michael Phelps and featured musical guest Lil Wayne as well as an appearance by Tina Fey as Gov. Sarah Palin, averaged 10.151 million viewers overall.

With a telecast hosted by Margot Robbie and featuring musical guest The Weeknd, as well as appearances by Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump and Larry David as Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Oct. 1, 2016 edition of “Saturday Night Live” averaged averaged 8.297 million viewers, up +31 percent or nearly 2 million persons from the 6.323 million that viewed the Oct. 3, 2015 season-opening telecast.

In adults 18-49, the 42nd “Saturday Night Live” season premiere averaged a 2.34 rating, 11 share in adults 18-49, for a +29 percent increase on the year-ago debut (1.82). It’s the highest-rated “SNL” season premiere in 18-49 since Sept. 28, 2013 (2.39 with host Tina Fey and musical guest Arcade Fire).

For more in-depth on the 42nd “Saturday Night Live” season premiere, read Marc Berman’s column at Campaign US.

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Source: Live+Same Day data, Nielsen Media Research

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* AFF = Number of affiliates (stations) airing the program
* CVG = percent of coverage in U.S.
	Saturday, October 1, 2016
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			5.3/10	9294	2.8/14	3.2/13	3.5/12
8:00	Saturday Night Football Louisville @ Clemson (thru 12:20am)	246	94	5.8/11	9294	2.8/14	3.2/13	3.6/12
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			2.6/5	3896	0.4/2	0.7/3	0.9/3
8:00	Crimetime Saturday Scorpion (r)	254	94	2.0/4	3095	0.3/2	0.5/2	0.7/2
9:00	48 Hours (r)	254	94	2.5/5	3709	0.4/2	0.6/2	0.9/3
10:00	48 Hours	254	94	3.3/7	4882	0.4/2	0.8/3	1.2/4
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			1.5/3	2373	0.4/2	0.5/2	0.7/2
8:00	The Good Place (r)	242	94	1.2/2	1783	0.2/1	0.4/2	0.5/2
8:30	The Good Place (r)	242	94	1.2/2	1849	0.3/2	0.4/2	0.6/2
9:00	The Good Place (r)	242	94	1.3/2	1964	0.3/1	0.4/2	0.6/2
9:30	The Good Place (r)	242	94	1.3/2	2050	0.3/2	0.4/2	0.6/2
10:00	Saturday Night Live (r)	242	94	2.1/4	3295	0.5/2	0.8/3	1.0/3
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-10	Network Average			0.9/2	1468	0.3/2	0.4/2	0.5/2
5:06	College Football Oklahoma @ TCU			1.3	2044		0.6
8:50	Fox College Football Post Gun (s)			1.1/2	1894	0.4/2	0.6/2	0.7/2
8:54	College Football Arizona State @ USC (thru 12:11am)	252	94	0.9/2	1459	0.3/2	0.4/2	0.4/2
	PROGRAM			HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			0.7/1	1345		0.6/2
6:55	Crónicas de Juan Gabriel: Lo que usted no ha visto (s)			1.1/2	1732		0.5/3
7:55	Fútbol Liga MX América vs. Monterrey (s)			0.8/2	1395		0.6/3
9:59	Fútbol Liga MX Morelia vs. Guadalajara (s) (thru 12:01am)			0.7/1	1263		0.6/2
	PROGRAM			HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			0.3/1	612		0.2/1
7:00	Cine Ni Sangre, Ni Arena (1941)			0.4/1	649		0.2/1
9:00	Cine Desafio Final (1996)			0.3/1	544		0.2/1

Sub-Demo Breakdowns – Saturday 10/01/16

For the entire week of September 26-October 2, 2016 in Total Day (8 p.m. to 5:59 a.m.), Adult Swim is down 3 percent in total viewership (0.910 million vs. 0.942 million) and down 2 percent among Adults 18-49 (533,000 vs. 542,000) from one week earlier; the network is also down -13 percent in total viewership (0.910 million vs. 1.052 million) and down -14 percent among Adults 18-49 (533,000 vs. 618,000) from the same week one year ago (September 28-October 4, 2015). (https://programmingins.wpengine.com/?p=11528)

	PROGRAM	HH	Viewers (000)	A18-49 rating
9:00	Bob’s Burgers (r)	0.57	940	0.38
9:30	Bob’s Burgers (r)	0.63	1047	0.47
10:00	American Dad (r)	0.79	1311	0.59
10:30	American Dad (r)	0.89	1507	0.63
11:00	Family Guy (r)		1693	0.76
11:30	Family Guy (r)		1662	0.74

TOONAMI – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2016

	PROGRAM	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating	A1849 (000)
12:00a	Dragon Ball Z Kai	1255	0.58	740
12:30a	One-Punch Man	1201	0.55	702
1:00a	Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans	831	0.38	489
1:30a	Hunter X Hunter	816	0.38	493
2:00a	Naruto: Shippuden	783	0.37	475
2:30a	One Piece	677	0.31	396
3:00a	Parasyte: The Maxim (r)	584	0.27	352
3:30a	Parasyte: The Maxim (r)	536	0.25	320
4:00a	Parasyte: The Maxim (r)	518	0.25	324

	PROGRAM	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating
4:30a	American Dad (r)	544	0.28
5:00a	American Dad (r)	570	0.30
5:30a	King of the Hill (r)	597	0.30

Cable Rankings – Saturday 10/01/16

What follows are the top 100 most-watched shows in prime time on cable (by order of network) for Saturday, October 1:

Source: Live+Same Day data, Nielsen Media Research