HOLLYWOOD - Many people claim they aren't confident enough to vote because they aren’t as informed as they’d like to be and find it difficult to keep up with the candidates and their campaigns.
Shows like HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Comedy Central's The Colbert Report and ABC's The View break it down into layman terms and present the information in an entertaining way that people can relate to.
Saturday Night Live is of course a parody of the candidates but people are tuning in and becoming informed. In turn, audiences are inspired to find out more on the topics and seek out the actual instances that are being reenacted. Which, in some cases the real thing is even more entertaining.
More than half of the viewers for SNL's recent skits featuring Tina Fey as Sarah Palin watched the sketches on the web as of Sept. 29, according to a survey conducted by Solutions Research Group reports AdvertisingAge.com.
About 51% of viewers who have seen at least one of the skits are watching on the internet, indicating that viewing preferences for this type of content are shifting toward the computer.
About 23% of all views came from YouTube, including video of other talk shows that showed clips of the skit, with 17% of views attributed to NBC.com and 4% to Hulu.com
"When something viral hits the social networks people clearly first go to YouTube to search and take it from there," said Kaan Yigit, analyst with SRG reports AdAge.com.
In addition to informing public perception on the election, the sketches are increasing awareness of Hulu.com as a video destination. About 25% of online Americans are now aware of Hulu, up from 15% in July.
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