The 'Saturday Night Live' special delivered 23.1 million viewers and a 7.8 rating among adults 18-49 on Sunday night.
- Feb 17, 2015
AceShowbiz - The "Saturday Night Live" 40th anniversary special is a ratings hit for NBC. The three-and-a-half hour telecast posted an impressive 23.1 million viewers and a 7.8 rating among adults 18-49 on Sunday night, February 15.
According to NBC, it is the most-watched primetime entertainment telecast (excluding post-Super Bowl programs) for the network in ten years, since "ER" finale in 2004. In the 18-49 demo, it marks the network's top-rated primetime entertainment telecast in eight years since the "Will & Grace" finale in 2006.
The "SNL" special also broke record on Twitter. According to Nielsen Social, 9.1 million people saw 1.3 million tweets about the special, marking the highest number of Twitter TV impressions of any series episode to date.
The star-studded celebration featured past hosts including Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, Bradley Cooper, Jim Carrey, Betty White, Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy, as well as former cast members like Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Eddie Murphy.
Tracy Morgan, who is still recovering after a fatal car accident last June, was absent from the event, but he was honored with a tribute led by Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. "And if he were here tonight, I'm sure Tracy would like to remind us that more than anything, he would like to get us all pregnant," Fey jokingly said, before a clip of Morgan as his "SNL" character Brian Fellow was played.
