Hockey Mom Scores (Even More) for 'SNL'

By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Sarah Palin -- even hotter than we thought.

The GOP veep candidate's audience for her Oct. 18 visit to "Saturday Night Live" jumped by a whopping 2 million viewers yesterday when Nielsen Media Research issued the Live+7 stats for the broadcast.

Adding in the 2 million people who caught her Weekend Update Chair Dance via DVR playback up to seven days after the broadcast, Palin's total crowd now stands at nearly 17 million in the Nielsen record book. For nearly three years, the Live+7 has been the number that goes into the record books.

With 16.84 million viewers, Palin is now within spitting distance of the most-watched "SNL" episode in the history of people-meter technology. The March 12, 1994, broadcast featuring Olympic ice skater Nancy Kerrigan and singer Aretha Franklin clocked 16.97 million viewers.

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When ratings on a once-hot series go cold, somebody is named Designated Virgin and tossed into the volcano to appease the TV gods.

In the case of NBC's "Heroes," the numbers are particularly bad in its third season. Last week's episode No. 6 clocked about 8 million viewers, compared with 11 million and 15 million for Episode 6 last season and in the first season, respectively. Adding to the trouble, "Heroes" is a serialized drama -- a genre in which it's nearly impossible to get viewers back once they've left.

In light of the seriousness of the situation, NBC Universal 2.0, which also produces the show, took the unusual step of naming two Designated Virgins: writer-producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander, who are now former writer-producers on "Heroes."

"I write this with a heavy heart. As of today I am no longer a writer/producer on HEROES," Alexander wrote on his blog over the weekend.

"I could not be prouder of all the work I did on the show."

Both men have been with the show since its first season and oversaw day-to-day operations under the leadership of creator-executive producer Tim Kring.

NBC is said to have been frustrated with the "creative direction" of the show.

"Creative direction" is another way of saying "ratings."

Additionally, the show is "grappling with hefty budget overruns" this season, according to news reports.

"Grappling with hefty budget overruns" is another way of saying "lousy ratings."

NBC Universal 2.0 pointedly did not name Kring a Designated Virgin, though it's assumed Loeb and Alexander were taking "Heroes" in the direction they were, however misguided, with his blessing.

Kring did not get tagged DV, we were assured by industry navel-gazers, because "Tim Kring is bulletproof . . . they have a big investment in him."

About 25 stunned comments in to his blog posting, Alexander added:

"Thanks for all the great comments! HEROES has been a blast. The rest of the season is super cool. We've written 18 amazing scripts. And the stories for the last 7 are intense."

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During the finale weekend before the presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama ran 77 percent more TV ads than his Republican rival, John McCain, in the key swing states of Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The actual tally was 5,947 ads from the Obama camp vs. 3,358 ads from the McCain camp, Nielsen Media Research said yesterday.

Not surprisingly, both candidates have advertised most heavily in Florida, where Obama ran a whopping 24,834 ads in little more than one month, Oct. 6 to Nov. 2. That's compared with 8,599 ads run by McCain in the state during the same period.

Nielsen's data include both national ads and local ads, as well as syndicated advertising, but local cable ads are excluded.

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Looking for a viewing alternative to the endless blah, blah, blahing and Mega-Pixel Giant Touch Map massaging on the cable news networks this Election Day?

"The Oprah Winfrey Show" will host cast members from "Saturday Night Live," Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselbeck from "The View," Mary Matalin and James Carville, and "American Idol" season whatev runner-up Chris Daughtry, all talking presidential politics. I know -- too good to be true.

Maury Povich plans a very special Election Day November ratings sweeps episode of his syndicated show: "Time to Vote! Born Man or Woman?"

This special episode "features some transgender candidates, as well as others who were born as women, strutting their stuff in front of the show's live studio audience." Viewers at home can vote on whether the candidates are "really women or men in disguise."

Grievously, your viewing options today won't include C-SPAN's coverage of the oral arguments in the on-air profanity case of FCC v. Fox over its broadcast of Cher and Nicole Richie using the same naughty word during the Billboard Music Awards in 2002 and '03. The U.S. Supreme Court, which does not allow TV cameras or live audio coverage, turned down C-SPAN's request for the tapes from today's session, which the cable network had hoped to get on the air lickety-split.

C-SPAN had successfully argued it should be able to televise Fox's oral arguments in the hearing before the U.S Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit of this fleeting-profanity case. Fox won that round when the appeals court said the Federal Communications Commission had been arbitrary and capricious in smacking down Fox stations over the fleeting naughty bits. The FCC appealed to the Supreme Court, which is where the story continues today.

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And, just in time for the November ratings sweeps, "Grey's Anatomy" is dumping its Dr. Erica Hahn character. The actress, Brooke Smith, said it's because the network was uncomfortable with the Callie-Erica lovers storyline, Entertainment Weekly says.

A couple of weeks ago, you'll recall, Callie and Erica's date night didn't go so well when Callie had trouble vacationing south of the border.

"I was very excited when they told me that Erica and Callie were going to have this relationship," the actress told the mag. "I really hoped we were going to show what happens when two women fall in love and that they were going to treat it like any heterosexual couple on TV," Smith said. "And so I was surprised and disappointed when they just suddenly told me that they couldn't write for my character any more."