How Many People Were Watching SNL in 1983-1984?

[Green_Bean]

I can’t seem to find anything via Google…

About how many millions of people watched Saturday Night Live during the 1983-1984 season? The high and the low would be best, but I could get by with an average for the whole season.

Thanks in advance!

[JKilez]

Was that the “it was all just a dream” season? The one they disavowed the next year?

[Green_Bean]

@JKilez

Was that the “it was all just a dream” season? The one they disavowed the next year?

I think that one was 1980/81 or thereabouts. 83/84 was the last season for Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo.

[engineer_comp_geek]

Moderator Action

Moving thread from General Questions to Cafe Society.

[Coriolanus]

Tim Kazurinsky was funny. So was the new guy, Eddie Murphy. This Piscopo guy, with his ‘what exit’ routine was done too much, and his terrific Sinatra not enough.

[engineer_comp_geek]

This page has a chart of ratings, though the chart is by percentage share instead of total viewers.

Forget Diversity: Saturday Night Live Has a Viewership Problem

[Don_Draper]

As an adolescent white suburban boy, I (and most of my friends) were its target demographic, so yes I watched it. Usually slept over at my friend Chris’s and we’d watch it. I think that was the year they did the coverage of the assasination of Buckwheat (“Brought to you by Timex. Time marches and on, and Timex is there…because Buckwheat would have wanted it that way.” Did you seen the news clip? Let’s got it to now…), which really was one of the most brilliant things they ever did.

[Don_Draper]

@Coriolanus

Tim Kazurinsky was funny. So was the new guy, Eddie Murphy. This Piscopo guy, with his ‘what exit’ routine was done too much, and his terrific Sinatra not enough.

Murphy and Piscopo did a running skit where they were denizens of a seedy piano lounge (Piscopo was the pianist, Murphy a cantankerous old patron). It was one of the few times that SNL did a skit that wasn’t utterly gag/punchline related. It was funny, but it was more of a character study bit, and surprisingly warm-hearted given Murphy’s rep as a bad boy at the time. The best installment is when Lily Tomlin guest hosted and played a clueless upper-crust society lady who comes and sings “Camptown Races.” Not one of the popular skits and never included in any of the “best of” retrospectives, but memorable.

[Green_Bean]

@engineer_comp_geek

This page has a chart of ratings, though the chart is by percentage share instead of total viewers.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/01/17/forget-diversity-saturday-night-live-has-a-viewership-problem

Thanks very much!

Anybody know how to translate that into a ballpark figure on how many people were watching in, say, 1983?

According to the chart, the share % was about 21% and the rating was about 7%.

[Drunky_Smurf]

Well wiki on Nielson ratings says this:

The most commonly cited Nielsen results are reported in two measurements: ratings points and share, usually reported as: “ratings points/share”. As of 2013, there were an estimated 115.6 million television households in the United States, up 1.2% from the previous year because of the inclusion of televisions that receive content over the Internet. A single national ratings point represents one percent of the total number, or 1,156,000 households for the 2013–14 season.[3] Nielsen re-estimates the number of TV-equipped households each August for the upcoming television season.

Share is the percentage of television sets in use tuned to the program. For example, Nielsen may report a show as receiving a 9.2/15 during its broadcast; meaning that out of all television-equipped households 9.2 percent were tuned in to that program, and out of all television-equipped households with a television currently in use 15 percent were tuned in to that program.[4]

Nielsen Media Research

So if it had 21% in 1984-1985 then that would be 21% of how many households had tvs at the time. So there another piece of information that is needed. I’m going to look for that number. Then is should be simple maths to figure it out.

[journeyman_southpaw]

@Don_Draper

Murphy and Piscopo did a running skit where they were denizens of a seedy piano lounge (Piscopo was the pianist, Murphy a cantankerous old patron). It was one of the few times that SNL did a skit that wasn’t utterly gag/punchline related. It was funny, but it was more of a character study bit, and surprisingly warm-hearted given Murphy’s rep as a bad boy at the time. The best installment is when Lily Tomlin guest hosted and played a clueless upper-crust society lady who comes and sings “Camptown Races.” Not one of the popular skits and never included in any of the “best of” retrospectives, but memorable.

Solomon and Pudge! I liked those characters too.

@Green_Bean

Thanks very much!

Anybody know how to translate that into a ballpark figure on how many people were watching in, say, 1983?

According to the chart, the share % was about 21% and the rating was about 7%.

According to this article, viewership was 12 million during the disastrous 1980-81 season. From the chart posted earlier it looks like ratings dropped a little more from there.

[Green_Bean]

@journeyman_southpaw

According to this article, viewership was 12 million during the disastrous 1980-81 season. From the chart posted earlier it looks like ratings dropped a little more from there.

That article says “The fear, loathing, and controversy surrounding SNL will probably be strictly academic by next fall.” If only they knew that it would go on for the next 34 YEARS!!!

[kenobi_65]

@Drunky_Smurf

So if it had 21% in 1984-1985 then that would be 21% of how many households had tvs at the time. So there another piece of information that is needed. I’m going to look for that number. Then is should be simple maths to figure it out.

Actually, that’s not quite right. “Share” is the percentage of TVs which are “in use” (i.e., turned on) at that moment. “Rating” is the percentage of all TV-owning households. A show’s rating is always lower than its share, as not every household is watching TV at any moment.

So, it was getting a 7 rating, you’d need to compare that against the number of TV-owning households in the 83-84 TV season.

[Kent_Clark]

It says here there were 83.3 million households with TV in the 1983-1984 season.

A 7 rating would be 7% of that, or 5,381,000 households. Carrying that a little further, in 1983 the average household had 2.73 people, making a theoretical viewership of 14,690,130.

Not all that bad, considering the highest rated prime time program, Dallas, was drawing about four times as many households at the time.

[Green_Bean]

If nothing else, it seems like I can safely say something like “over 10 million people.”

[Green_Bean]

I should explain what I’m doing with the number. I need to describe about how many people might be watching on a given night during the Murphy/Piscopo years and I’d like it to sound as impressive as possible. So “over 10 million” is preferable to “millions.” Something like “14 million” would be even better if possible, but “over 10 million” would be sufficient to make the point.

The number doesn’t have to be exact or anything, but it should reflect reality.
ETA: It could be any of the Murphy/Piscopo seasons, whichever is highest. I picked 83/84 because I figured the viewership would have gone up over the three years they were on, but I guess not.

[Kent_Clark]

@Green_Bean

If nothing else, it seems like I can safely say something like “over 10 million people.”

Well, of the 2.73 average people in a household, I’m willing to be that at least .73 of them were kids and probably not allowed to stay up to watch SNL.

I guess “around 10 million” would be in the ballpark.