SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE BEATS NASCAR, BASEBALL PLAYOFFS

Despite the fact that on Saturday night the primetime hours on broadcast TV were dominated by NASCAR racing on ABC, Major League Baseball’s National League Championship Series on Fox, and a strong performance by CBS’s 48 Hours, the most-watched show among the key 18-49 age group did not even air in primetime at all. It was Saturday Night Live with host Bill Hader, which drew a preliminary 1.8 rating in the demo versus a 1.2 for NASCAR, a 1.0 for MLB, and a 0.8 for 48 Hours. Ironically, SNL accomplished the ratings win for the night despite diving to its lowest ratings itself since last May. The slump came as reports indicated that morale among the female cast members of the sketch-comedy series has fallen following the decision to name two male performers to anchor the long-running "Weekend Update" segment and drop previous anchor Cecily Strong. Particularly outraged, according to a New York Daily News account, which quoted a "spy" working on the show, is Sasheer Zamata, who joined the cast only last January. The "Update" feature is now co-anchored by Colin Jost and Michael Che.

According to a report by Deadline.com, Saturday’s show tied a series low. We are attempting to verify that report, which seems questionable given numerous historical accounts that the show hit its nadir during the 1980-81 season.