Sunday, December 8, 2024

“SNL” Still Having Ratings Trouble Despite Pulling Out Big Musical Guns with Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran

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“Saturday Night Live” is still in the ratings doldrums despite pulling out the two top selling pop stars as musical guests this month.

On Saturday, the show scored just under 5 million viewers for Taylor Swift’s 10 minute song, plus her appearance in sketches. Show host Jonathan Majors was not a strong draw. With delayed viewing, the final numbers went up to 5.8 million.

That number was only incrementally higher than the week before with Ed Sheeran drawing a total 5.7 million with delayed viewing.

So what can they do? The show’s writing is very steady right now, and the pop stars are the biggest. The hosts are kind of meh, but that shouldn’t be holding down viewing.

The next pairing doesn’t bode well for ratings at all: Saweetie is the musical guest, and Simu Liu of the movie “Shang Chi” will host. How the bookers arrived at this pairing is anyone’s guess.

Meanwhile, no sign of Kate McKinnon’s return, and soon Cecily Strong- who’s been knocking it out of the park every week– will head to off off Broadway to try out her Lily Tomlin show. (I’m really looking forward to that.)

So far the real winner of the season is James Austin Johnson, whose impersonations– particularly Trump– are spot-on and eerily reminiscent of the great David Frye.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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