The times, they are a-changing.
Until two weeks ago, it was always possible to get ratings on the following Tuesday for “Saturday Night Live.”
Alas, no more.
I’m told by NBC insiders that they will now only divulge a total rating on Thursday for the prior weekend. That number will include delayed viewing on DVR and on Peacock. We will not know how many people actually watched the show on Saturday night on the broadcast channel.
At least, the numbers won’t come from NBC, as they have in the past.
I’m reminded that NBC stopped giving overnight numbers a couple of years ago. And that’s true. We were waiting 48 hours to get delayed viewing then as well. But now it’s possible NBC will not sharing much data at all unless it’s bundled with a lot of other things.
This situation may lead to no numbers for the public at all. Cable is reticent to divulge anything. Syndicated shows have stopped giving their numbers. Streaming — like Netflix or Apple– offers nothing. They have no transparency whatsoever. They say it’s because they don’t want to embarrass their stars. But we know it’s avoid admitting what is and isn’t popular.
It took all of last week to get the number for the Timothee Chalamet episode of “SNL” — it was 6 million including people who watched it with tin foil hats. The linear number was probably more like 4.5 million. This past weekend’s Jason Momoa show might be available soon.
