I remember a time when “Saturday Night Live” was funny. I was in junior high school, and all any of my friends could talk about on Monday was “SNL.” Granted, I was spoiled. The revolving cast I grew up with featured greats like the late Phil Hartman, the recently departed Norm Macdonald, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Tim Meadows, Julia Sweeney, and the late, great Chris Farley. Like I said, we were spoiled growing up.
It looks as though today’s “SNL” is a far cry from that portion of the show’s glory days, because the TV ratings for the Season 47 premiere came out on Tuesday — and it literally couldn’t get worse.
According to The Wrap:
The “SNL” Season 47 premiere is now the lowest-rated episode among adults 18-49 in the show’s long-running history, according to Nielsen. While Saturday’s episode, hosted by Owen Wilson, was the least-watched season premiere episode of all-time, it was not the least-watched of any episode ever in terms of total viewers.
This past Saturday’s episode, which was hosted by Owen Wilson, drew a 0.92 rating in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and 4.9 million total viewers. Those Nielsen numbers were down 50% in the demo and 41% overall from the show’s Season 46 premiere, which was hosted by Chris Rock.
While the show has always been political to a degree, it’s almost as if the “SNL” shift to full-on political commentary through what New York deems as “comedy” these days has Americans turning the show off for better options — like watching paint dry.
Such a shame that a show people used to look forward to all week — an institution, if you will — has turned into nothing more than propaganda for those that already agree with them. Although, it’s really not that surprising if you look at what the major networks have been putting out the past few years in terms of late-night entertainment.