Ratings Analysis: A last-minute COVID outbreak derailed much of what was planned for the winter finale of NBC's 'Saturday Night Live' (0.89, -0.07), likely causing the series to lose seven-hundredths from last week's Billie Eilish episode. Though this Paul Rudd-hosted 'SNL' was little more than a glorified clip-show and arrived without planned musical guest Charli XCX, it was somehow able to avoid posting a new series low. A few hours prior, encores of 'The Wall' (0.21) and 'Dateline' (0.30) were two-hundredths higher than the week before, but 'SNL Vintage' (0.32) lost three-hundredths. Over on ABC, the 'Utah State vs. Oregon State' college football game (0.49) outpaced all non-'SNL' broadcasts and gave the alphabet network the strongest overall average of the evening. Leading out of feeble repeats of 'The Equalizer' (0.14) and itself (0.16), CBS's '48 Hours' (0.19, -0.15) crashed to its lowest rating of the season. On Fox, 'PBC Fight Night' (0.17) was roughly on-par with the '9-1-1' reruns from the previous Saturday. The CW had meager showings of 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer' (0.06) and a Christmas edition of 'World's Funniest Animals' (0.08).
Finals Update: 'College Football: UT St. v. OR St.' (+0.1) adjusted up. '48 Hours' (-0.2) and repeats of 'The Equalizer' (-0.2) and '48 Hours' (-0.1) adjusted down.
(R) = repeat
