What that means is that Trump’s episode was rated 57% higher than the show’s fall average and 53% higher versus the same episode past year.
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That’s the amount of time being clocked by NBC over Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s screen time during his hosting gig on this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live.
America’s Voice, a pro-immigration reform group that was of the many participating in the protests of the network, went even further writing in a biting press release that “everybody hated Donald Trump on SNL”.
“What are you doing, Larry?” Trump asked during the monologue. But the Republican presidential candidate hosted Saturday’s “SNL” as scheduled.
The show made reference to that controversy when comedian Larry David, in an obvious send-up, called out “Donald Trump is a racist!” to an apparently unfazed Trump. A bemused Trump shrugged off the incident, saying as a businessman I can respect that. One sketch had Trump in the White House, reviewing his fictional accomplishments during his first two years as president with his staff and accepting a check from an actor playing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to pay for construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, one of the policies proposed by the billionaire on the campaign trail.
Hours before the show aired, dozens of protesters marched from Trump Tower to NBC’s studio in Rockefeller Plaza, chanting in both English and Spanish and carrying signs.
For candidate Trump, whose many interview and debate appearances have drawn large viewerships, a spike in this week’s “SNL” ratings seemed assured.
The show, which came under fire from Latino groups for inviting the blunt-spoken Republican presidential frontrunner to host, garnered a 6.6 rating in the 56 USA markets measured by Nielsen Media Research, NBC said in a statement.
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Trump’s known penchant for tweeting was also integrated into the show – as well as his not-so-talked about dance skills, put to use during a recreation of Drake’s viral video “Hotline Bling”. “I’m not talking about fancy coins like dimes and quarters”, David/Sanders said in a plea for donations found in a household cleaning device. “He is going to have to explain a lot of things away, (like) the scholarship situation”.
