The morning after the much anticipated Saturday Night Live 40th anniversary special, NBC’s “Today” Show gave the SNL special more than 10 times the coverage during its first three hours Monday than the brutal beheadings of Egyptian Christians by ISIS.
The terror group’s five-minute long video, which was released Sunday afternoon, purports to show 21 ISIS hostages being beheaded. Egypt responded by firing airstrikes at ISIS targets on Monday, following the lead of nearby Jordan after one of its pilots was burned alive by the terror group.
However, “Today” thought the SNL special was of vast importance, covering the humor-filled three and a half hour-long affair for 15 minutes and eight seconds (908 seconds in total). Meanwhile, coverage of the ISIS beheadings totaled a meager one minute and 28 seconds.
“Good Morning America” and “This Morning” both covered the SNL special significantly less than “Today,” but it still received more coverage than the ISIS killings. The two-hour long programs devoted two minutes and 30 seconds and four minutes and 27 seconds to the SNL special, respectively.
Meanwhile, less than two minutes of coverage was committed to the ISIS beheadings by GMA (1:48) and “This Morning” (1:57).
Overall, though, the SNL special was a smashing success for NBC as more than 23 million people tuned in. The show featured many prominent sketches, including “Celebrity Jeopardy!” and “Wayne’s World.”
NBC went all out to promote the special, bringing back nearly every star from the show since 1975, including Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon and Chevy Chase.
[h/t: Newsbusters]