Longer than the Super Bowl game, slower than the wrong line at the grocery store.
Sunday night’s “Saturday Night Live” 40th anniversary special was all that and more.
The few new sketches felt random, the classic bits were given short shrift and the new musical performances (McCartney, Kanye, Miley Cyrus) were mostly forgettable considering there was four decades worth of material to draw from.
But Milwaukee viewers made it the most watched show of the night.
The three and one half hour special earned a 16.9 rating on Milwaukee NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV (Channel 4). Ratings peaked at 7:30 p.m. with an 18.5
The hour-long red carpet walk up special, during which the “Today” cast interviewed veteran cast members, earned a 9.8 rating.
Overall ratings for the one-of-a-kind event were about ten rating points lower than last year’s Oscar telecast and considerably less than this year’s Super Bowl.
The heavily promoted WTMJ newscast – a man gets a parking ticket! watch a ten car collision (slow news night) – delayed until 10:30 p.m. was also the most watched newscast of the night, with a 6.7 rating, although the WITI-TV (Channel 6) newscast won the regular 10 p.m. ratings contest.
A local ratings point is the equivalent of 8,932 television homes, meaning 150,950 homes watched the show in the Milwaukee market.
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