Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update Ratings Hit Big

SNL is on a historic hot streak of late, and they’ve carried that heat into the standalone “summer edition” of their signature “Weekend Update” segment. Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, hosted by Colin Jost and Michael Che, premiered last night and hit big in the ratings, becoming the highest-rated new or returning summer comedy premiere in nine years, per THR.

The half-hour primetime premiere, which aired at 9 p.m. EDT on Thursday night, Aug. 10, averaged a 1.7 rating among the key demographic of adults aged 18-49, making the show second only to CBS’ reality juggernaut Big Brother. To put that in perspective, no new or returning summer comedy on any of the big four networks (NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox) has premiered above a 1.5 since 2009. Weekend Update also scored a 42 percent increase over its lead-in, reality series The Wall, averaging 6.5 million viewers for the night as a whole.

All told, these numbers are a significant step up from NBC’s past efforts to air their signature political-comedy sketch during the week. Weekend Update’s four-episode run will end when SNL gears up for season 43 this fall.

Watch Bill Hader become Anthony Scaramucci on last night’s Weekend Update premiere here, and hear us out on why the segment’s standalone version is actually a bad idea here.