Saturday Final Nationals: NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ Delivers its Second Most-Watched Season Premiere in Seven Years

“Saturday Night Football” gave ABC its fifth consecutive win Saturday night among households, viewers and all key male and adult demos (males 18-34, males 18-49, males 25-54, adults 18-34, adults 18-49 and adults 25-54). On this night, Clemson at Virginia Tech (8 p.m.) delivered a total live audience of 4.693 million viewers (Week 5’s most-watched game), beating Fox’ TV-only prime time audience by 75 percent.

(Source: ESPN)

The 43rd season premiere of “Saturday Night Live,” hosted by Ryan Gosling and musical guest Jay-Z, generated the show’s second most-watched season opener in seven years, with 7.02 million viewers and 1.91 million adults 18-49, according to “fast official” “live plus same day” results.

Over that seven-year span, the only bigger result for an “SNL” season debut came with last year’s opener, hosted by Margot Robbie and featuring musical guest The Weeknd, as well as the first appearance of Alec Baldwin as then-Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump (8.297 million viewers overall, 2.34 rating in adults 18-49). Last year’s premiere was at that time the show’s most-watched in eight years and highest-rated in 18-49 in three years.

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* AFF = Number of affiliates (stations) airing the program
* CVG = percent of coverage in U.S.
	Saturday, September 30, 2017
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			2.8		1.2	1.5	1.8
8:00	Saturday Night Pre-Game			1.9/4	3126	0.6/4	0.8/4	1.0/4
8:07	Saturday Night Football Clemson @ Virginia Tech (thru 11:43)	261	92	2.7/6	4613	1.2/7	1.5/7	1.7/6
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			2.3/5	3454	0.3/2	0.5/2	0.7/3
8:00	Crimetime Saturday NCIS (r)	254	92	2.2/4	3302	0.3/2	0.4/2	0.6/2
9:00	48 Hours (s)	254	92	1.9/4	2826	0.3/2	0.4/2	0.6/2
10:00	48 Hours (p)	254	92	2.9/6	4235	0.3/2	0.6/3	0.9/3
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			1.6/3	2414	0.3/2	0.5/2	0.7/2
8:00	Will & Grace (r)	243	92	1.5/3	2123	0.2/1	0.4/2	0.5/2
8:30	Superstore (r)	242	92	1.0/2	1493	0.2/1	0.3/2	0.5/2
9:00	Dateline Mystery	209	86	2.0/4	2984	0.3/2	0.6/2	0.8/3
10:00	Saturday Night Live (r)	243	92	1.6/3	2449	0.3/2	0.6/3	0.8/3
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			1.5		0.5	0.7	0.8
7:41	College Football Extra	255	92	1.4/3	2269	0.5/3	0.7/3	0.8/3
8:07	College Football Pre-Kick			1.3/3	2195	0.4/3	0.6/3	0.7/3
8:10	College Football Notre Dame @ Michigan State (thru 11:57)	255	92	1.6/3	2685	0.5/3	0.8/3	0.9/3
	PROGRAM			HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			0.5/1	995		0.4/2
6:59	Crónicas de Sábado			0.4/1	722		0.2/1
7:59	Fútbol Liga MX Tigres UANL vs. Guadalajara			0.5/1	1001		0.4/2
10:05	Fútbol Liga MX Toluca vs. America (thru 12:03 a.m.)			0.5/1	985		0.4/2
	PROGRAM			HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			0.4/1	726		0.2/1
7:05	Cine Si Yo Fuera Diputado (1952)			0.4/1	672		0.2/1
9:05	Cine Robin-B-Hood (2006) (thru 11:05 p.m.)			0.4/1	712		0.3/1
	PROGRAM			HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			0.3/1	596	0.2/1	0.2/1
7:00	Lado Humano Fama (s)			0.2/0	358	0.0/0	0.1/1
8:00	Cine Marvel’s The Avengers (2012)			0.3/1	596	0.2/1	0.2/1

Live+3 Day Ratings – Saturday 9/30/17

For the entire week of September 25-October 1, 2017 in Total Day (8 p.m. to 5:59 a.m.), Adult Swim is down 4 percent in viewership (0.771 million vs. 0.801 million) and down 3 percent among Adults 18-49 (490,000 vs. 503.000) from one week earlier; the network is also down 15 percent in viewership (0.771 million vs. 0.910 million) and down 8 percent among Adults 18-49 (490,000 vs. 533,000) from the same week one year ago (September 26-October 2, 2016). (https://programmingins.wpengine.com/?p=19713)

	PROGRAM	HH	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating	A1849 (000)
8:00	Dragon Ball Super (r)	0.40	600	0.22	279
8:30	Dragon Ball Super	0.50	768	0.34	442
9:00	Rick & Morty (r)	0.47	740	0.34	435
9:30	Rick & Morty (r)	0.52	846	0.37	473
10:00	Family Guy (r)	0.60	959	0.43	557
10:30	Family Guy (r)	0.72	1149	0.52	674

TOONAMI – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2017

	PROGRAM	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating	A1849 (000)
11:00	Dragon Ball Super (r)	852	0.41	523
11:30	Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters	779	0.36	459
12:00a	Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders	613	0.28	357
12:30a	Tokyo Ghoul	603	0.28	357
1:00a	Hunter X Hunter	563	0.26	336
1:30a	Lupin the 3rd: Part 4	522	0.25	319
2:00a	Naruto: Shippuden	519	0.25	321
2:30a	Outlaw Star	470	0.23	291
3:00a	Cowboy Bebop (r)	444	0.21	268
3:30a	Attack on Titan (r)	418	0.18	232

	PROGRAM	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating	A1849 (000)
4:00a	Rick & Morty (r)	428	0.21	276
4:30a	Rick & Morty (r)	463	0.24	311
5:00a	King of the Hill (r)	521	0.25	325
5:30a	King of the Hill (r)	518	0.24	314

Source: Live+Same Day data, Nielsen Media Research