‘Saturday Night Live’ ratings: Justin Timberlake draws best numbers in over a year

The moment that Justin Timberlake was announced as the host of “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, you knew that the ratings were going to be stellar. However, did you ever imagine that they were going to be as strong as they ended up being?

Overall, the show this weekend drew a massive 3.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which is the show’s best total since the Charles Barkley episode back in January 2012 (and that was boosted mostly by airing right after a NFL playoff game). If you want to know something even more impressive than that, know that this show averaged a better rating over the course of its airing than all of the four major networks did combined from 8-11:00 p.m. Eastern time.

As for some other interesting bits of data, “SNL” came close to beating every episode of “American Idol” this week, topped “The Bachelor: The Women Tell All,” and was by far the highest-rated program on NBC. As a matter of fact, this is the best that the network has done with a non-sports program ever since the season 3 finale for “The Voice.” The ultimate translation here? The show is probably going to let Timberlake eventually be a six-time host on the show as soon as he wants to come back. (Then again, it’ll probably be at least a year given that he wants to make his show a special event, and not just something he does so often that people start to grow tired of him.)

Speaking of repeat hosts, Melissa McCarthy will be coming on board April 6 for the next new “SNL” episode.

Did you expect to see the ratings for the show be as strong as they were? In case you missed our full review for the episode for whatever reason, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: NBC