‘SNL UK’ Ratings Drop 42% for Riz Ahmed-Hosted Episode 3
Episode 3 of ‘Saturday Night Live UK’ saw its sharpest drop in ratings yet, down 95,050 from its season high. Riz Ahmed presented the third episode with music by Kasabian.
Episode 3 received ratings of 130,950, which equated to a 1.8% audience share. That’s a 42% drop from the first episode of the live comedy show, which attracted 226,000 viewers, and a 36% drop from episode 2, which was watched by 205,000 viewers.
Episode 1 was hosted by Tina Fey, featuring cameos from celebrities like Michael Cera and Graham Norton, while Episode 2 was hosted by ‘Fifty Shades’ star Jamie Dornan.
Episode 3 featured a cold open with another skit about British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urging Britain’s three biggest celebrities – football star Harry Kane, actor Olivia Colman and cartoon character Peppa Pig – to help cheer up the nation. “SNL UK” cast member George Fouracres played Starmer, accompanied by Al Nash as Kane, Emma Sidi as Colman and Annabel Marlow as Peppa.
In Ahmed’s opening monologue he made some self-deprecating jokes about the British attitude to life and he also took part in sketches about, among other things, ‘The Traitors’, the birth of the Easter Bunny and a society of historical authors. At the time of publication, his monologue had been viewed 41,000 times on YouTube, 17 hours after it was posted. During the same period, the Cold Open was viewed 227,000 times on the video sharing platform.
In Saturday night’s 10pm timeslot, “Bill Bailey: Thoughtifier” on Channel 4 and “Top of the Pops 1989” on BBC 2 both had more than double the viewership of “SNL UK”, watched by 342,000 and 444,000 people respectively. On ITV in the same timeslot, “The Jonathan Ross Show” had almost 1 million viewers, while the news on BBC 1 attracted an audience of more than 3 million. However, these are all free-to-air channels, while Sky, which broadcasts “SNL UK”, is not.
However, “SNL UK” was still the best performing content on Sky 1 that day. ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’, which played before it, was the second highest, drawing an audience of 71,660.
Jack Whitehall will host episode 4 with Jorja Smith as musical guest.
