Ratings Analysis: Host Pete Davidson and musical guest Ice Spice propelled the season debut of 'Saturday Night Live' (0.96) to great heights on NBC. This rating was over 30% larger than last October's premiere (0.73) and also well above the program's makeshift season finale from April (0.67). Part of the growth should probably be attributed to the strong 'USC v. Notre Dame' college football game (1.53) that led into 'SNL'. This game was much higher than ABC's 'Miami v. NC' (0.80) and completely trampled Fox's 'UCLA v. OR St.' telecast (0.30). The CW's 'Louisville v. Pittsburgh' college football game (0.10) performed better than the network's usual fare but was nowhere near the big four. '48 Hours' (0.22, +0.01) picked up a hundredth on CBS and doubled the rerun of 'NCIS: Hawai'i' (0.11) that led into it. CBS also aired a pilot encore of 'Raid the Cage' (0.13) in the 8 p.m. hour.
Finals Update: 'College Football: USC v. Notre Dame' (+0.3), 'College Football: Miami v. NC' (+0.1), and 'College Football: UCLA v. OR St.' (+0.1) adjusted up.
(P) = premiere
(R) = repeat