Inside Media: Why Saturday Night Live is the worst show on TV

Welcome back to INSIDE MEDIA where we bring you the scoop on media news, with plenty of views, every Monday and Thursday.

SNL STILL A STINKER AT 50

Often hailed as the pinnacle of television comedy, Saturday Night Live (or SNL as its affectionately known) launched its 50th season this week on America’s NBC (Foxtel/Binge here in Australia). It’s a significant achievement so I decided to take a look at the first episode back.

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Hell would have to be more pleasant than having to sit through this!

Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars got their start on SNL – Robert Downey Jr., Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Martin Short, Chris Rock, Billy Crystal, Dan Aykroyd, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey and Bill Murray, just to name a few. Despite the impressive roll call, I’ve never been able to understand why this show is so popular.

Living in Australia, I didn’t grow up with the show, so maybe there’s a lot of nostalgia associated with the brand. There are funny clips, to be sure, but overall, the skits go far too long, aren’t overly funny and it takes itself way too seriously.

Episode 1 of Season 50 started with a skit about the US Presidential race – that makes perfect sense. Maya Rudolph did a pitch perfect performance as Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

BUT IT WENT WAAAAAAAAAAY TOO LONG!

No joke, the opening skit went over 12 minutes. It might have been funny if it had been cut in half – and I say MIGHT advisedly.

Dana Carvey playing President Joe Biden was only funny after he doubled down on a joke that fell mostly flat the first time – a moment where he interrupted his own “guess what?” with “and by the way.”

Guest host Jean Smart delivered a boring monologue that was mostly padded out by a song.

And if you want to truly understand how seriously this show takes itself, have a look at just one of the photos of Smart as we go to commercial break.

The only highlight in this show is Weekend Update – a segment created by original anchor Chevy Chase and SNL writers Herb Sargent and Al Franken 50 years ago. The segment uses current topics as a set-up for well crafted jokes. It works and was the only bright spot in this humdrum show.

MEDIA WATCH RE-HASH

One of my weekly routines is to watch Media Watch on the ABC every Monday night. While I usually enjoy the show, I was very confused by its commentary about the ACCC investigation into Coles and Woolworths, which made plenty of news last week.

It was a story that either led the TV evening news bulletins or was very high in their rundowns, but that didn’t seem to be good enough for the folks at Media Watch, who took issue with commercial news outlets for not exposing the alleged price gouging themselves – before the ACCC.

Instead, fill-in host Janine Perrett rehashed an old ABC gripe about commercial news bulletins daring to give airtime to supermarket bargains over the years, saying: “Let’s be clear, obviously a key reason the supermarkets get these fawning stories is because they’re top 10 advertisers, helping keep the networks afloat.”

I don’t know if that’s actually true as Media Watch didn’t provide any proof for that claim, but anyway, they’re completely wrong on why TV does these stories.

I’m going to let you all in on a little secret; the reason breakfast shows, and TV news bulletins cover supermarket specials is because… THEY RATE!

It’s a simple, boring answer – but it’s the truth.

They are promotable stories that bring in audiences who are struggling to make ends meet in a cost of living crisis.

On this occasion, Media Watch seems to have a headline desperately looking for a story. Now, if the nightly news bulletins hadn’t aired the ACCC claims against Coles and Woolworths, that would be a story.

Unfortunately for Media Watch, our nightly news bulletins didn’t adhere to the ABC narrative of decisions being made for commercial reasons. Seven, Nine and 10 not only aired the ACCC allegations, but they also put the story at the top – or near the top – of their rundowns around the country.

RADIO RATINGS SPIN

Spare a thought for the bosses at Nine radio this week, who are reading ridiculous headlines about what’s wrong with Sydney’s 2GB.

While the station is usually number 1, key programs suffered a blow in the latest ratings, released Tuesday this week.

The Daily Telegraph claimed: “For this team to go backwards so dramatically points to something happening behind the scenes.”

Or… and bear with me here… it was just a bad result.

There is mixed commentary about whether the Olympics hurt 2GB with breakfast presenter Ben Fordham saying: “The Olympics provided lots of memorable moments but they also interrupted our normal programming and that pushes a few people away.”

His boss, Greg Byrnes, disagreed, telling MediaWeek: “If you look at Melbourne, [the Olympics] had a wonderful impact but if you look at Sydney, it’s somewhat soft. I don’t think we can just blame [yesterday’s] 2GB result solely on the Olympics,”

I think Byrnes is wrong on this one and Fordham is closer to the truth. The Olympics is a TV event so those wanting action from Paris would have been more likely to watch Channel 9’s coverage, rather than listen to it on the radio. Melbourne is sporting mad though, so maybe they were more open to listening to the games?

Either way, 2GB is likely to feel some more pain in the next round of ratings due to the overlapping survey period. The results just released covered July 7 to September 14 and the next results (survey 7) will cover August 11 to September 14 & September 22 to October 26.

But before you write 2GB off, why don’t we wait and see if a trend develops for the rest of the year – then we can proclaim the sky is falling.

And a little ‘I told you so’ before we move on.

You might remember I revealed ratings in Melbourne for The Kyle and Jackie O Show were set to go down due to the ‘wave’.

Well, it turns out McKNIGHT WAS RIGHT™.

The show dropped from 6.1 per cent last survey to 5.2 per cent. That equates to around 71,000 listeners turning off.

KIDS AND SOCIAL MEDIA

The Federal Parliament of Australia did something good this week (yes, you read that correctly).

With the Albanese Government set to introduce legislation banning kids from using social media, a Joint Select Committee for Social Media and Australian society actually spoke with a teenager – 16-year-old Leo Puglisi.

Leo is the Chief Anchor of 6 News – an online news service that produces regular bulletins made by teenagers.

There’s no doubt Leo is an impressive young man, I’ve been a fan of his work for a few years now.

Like Leo, I have doubts that an age limit for social media use is the right course of action or is even workable. Liberal MP Andrew Wallace questioned Leo about the idea that kids would simply break the law and find a way to get on social media, saying: “We set road rules. We know that people are going to speed but we still say ‘well, on this stretch of road 60km an hour is the speed limit. If you go over that speed limit than you’re breaking the rules and you’ll be fined if you’re caught’, but we don’t just say ‘oh well, we know people are going to speed, therefore we won’t have road rules’. Do you accept there’s an analogy to be drawn there?

An unflustered Leo replied: “I concede that analogy, but I think there’s other analogies you can bring about, you know, when there’s danger in the water we don’t teach kids to stay out of the water, we teach them to swim, right, we teach them to deal with social media”.

Well said Leo! Let’s hope the final report with your commentary, which will be presented on or before 18 November, will sway our politicians.

Inside Media is published every Monday and Thursday at 5pm.

Rob McKnight is the co-owner of TV Blackbox