
Sinclair’s comedy-focused multicast network TBD has seen a lift in weekday viewership after incorporating re-runs of “Saturday Night Live” into its schedule, according to Nielsen figures released by a company executive this week.
Over the first 10 days of the show’s airing on TBD, the network saw a 20 percent increase in viewership between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. among adults between the ages of 25 and 54 years old (A25-54), the group most-attractive to traditional broadcast and cable TV advertisers, according to data provided by Sinclair’s Senior Vice President of Growth Networks Adam Ware.
Among the A35-64+ group, TBD’s airing of Saturday Night Live saw a 22 percent lift in viewership during the “access” hours of 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., and a 100 percent increase among the A50+ group between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., the Nielsen ratings show.
Related: A Conversation With Sinclair’s SVP of Growth Networks Adam Ware
Repeats of Saturday Night Live began airing on TBD earlier this month. The shows are edited from their usual run of 90-plus minutes to 60 minutes, mirroring the syndicated version of the show that aired on cable networks like Comedy Central and VH1 in the past.
TBD is the first broadcast network to offer re-runs of Saturday Night Live beyond NBC itself, where the show entered its 50th season last month. TBD was the first broadcast network to offer edited re-runs of Comedy Central’s “Key & Peele,” which are scheduled alongside the CW Network’s “Whose Line is it Anyway?” and back episodes of MTV’s “Punk’d.”
TBD is one of three multicast networks operated by Sinclair, which includes Comet, Charge! and The Nest, collectively known as “The Stack.” Since last year, The Stack has enjoyed a 122 percent growth in the ratings among adults ages 25 to 54 years old, the key demographic that is most-attractive to linear television advertisers.
Saturday Night Live is distributed by NBC Universal Global TV Distribution and produced in association with Broadway Video.