Although critics were generally lukewarm at best to this weekend’s Saturday Night Live Season 50 premiere with host Jean Smart and musical guest Jelly Roll, viewers took to it in droves.
According to Nielsen Live-plus-same-day ratings data, this weekend’s episode drew 5,388,000 total viewers to NBC. Year-over-year, that’s up 609,000 viewers (or +13%) over Season 49’s season premiere, which was hosted by Pete Davidson with musical guest Ice Spice.
In fact, Saturday’s episode drew the largest total live-plus-same-day audience for an SNL premiere since 2020 (another presidential election year), when Chris Rock hosted alongside musical guest Megan Thee Stallion.
NBC says the season premiere also ranks as Peacock’s most-watched SNL ever through the first weekend, though the company did not provide specific numbers.
Along with the nearly 5.4 million total live-plus-same-day viewers, this weekend’s SNL averaged 1,126,000 P18-49 viewers. That represents the show’s largest live-plus-same-day audience from the demo for any episode since the Season 49 season premiere, which drew 1,260,000 P18-49 (an -11% difference).
Expect all of these numbers to grow as delayed linear viewing numbers come in over the coming days and weeks. (For example: per Nielsen, last year’s Ryan Gosling-hosted episode initially drew 4.7 million total live-plus-same-day viewers, but that grew to 7.5 million total viewers when live-plus-seven-day data was reported a week later.)
Viewers tuning in this weekend to see how Lorne Michaels and team would cast the players in this year’s presidental election certainly weren’t disappointed. In addition to a returning James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump and a previously-announced Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris, the show’s cameo-packed cold open also introduced Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz and SNL alums Andy Samberg and Dana Carvey as Doug Emhoff and Joe Biden. Cast member Bowen Yang played the show’s J.D. Vance.
Saturday Night Live returns for the second of four new episodes in a row this weekend with host Nate Bargatze and musical guest Coldplay.
