RECENT FINDINGS

IMMI “3-Screen” Tracking Shows Buzz Built an After-Air Audience for SNL’s Palin Sketches Twice as Big as Those Who Saw Them on the Original Airing

The three Saturday Night Live sketches featuring Tina Fey as a dead-on Sarah Palin generated a huge amount of delayed and Internet viewing.  Of the people who saw any of the three sketches,  only 33% watched them on TV when they were originally broadcast.   An amazing 67% watched them later either playing them back from DVR’s or watching them on the Internet. 

IMMI has been monitoring three screen viewing (TV, Internet, and Mobile) this year,  and this is the first time we’ve seen delayed viewing percentages this big.  Usually it’s the other way around with three-quarters of the viewing live,  and one-quarter delayed.  It’s probably the power of the buzz these sketches generated that drove viewers to check them out later.

Republicans,  Democrats,  and Independents all worked together on this one.  There wasn’t much difference in behavior between them.   

For many viewers, the Tina Fey version was as close as they got to seeing Sarah Palin debate.  Of the viewers who watched one of the sketches, 56% never saw the vice-presidential debate.   Again Democrats and Republicans behaved similarly,  apparently many of both parties thought seeing the comic Palin was sufficient.