Late-night skits reap rewards from the Web

Even though the last week of the presidential race lies ahead, there’s already a winner: late-night comedy skits spread virally on the Web.

Hosts such as David Letterman and programs including “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show” are profitably mining the campaign for satirical fodder, but the broadcast is only the beginning.

Not only did “SNL” get its largest TV audience (15 million) in 14 years for the Oct. 18 broadcast with vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin watching Tina Fey impersonate her, but Palin-related “SNL” skits have been viewed more than 63 million times across the Web, according to tracking firm Visual Measures.

Online users’ sharing of “SNL” videos, through e-mail and posting on other sites, has made it the top TV show on the Web, says the firm’s Matt Cutler.

More pre-election returns:

Republican candidate John McCain’s Oct. 16 make-up visit to “The Late Show With David Letterman” averaged 6.5 million viewers, the show’s biggest audience in years. After that, clips were viewed more than 1 million times online and via mobile devices. Traffic for other Letterman-McCain-related clips on lateshow.com totaled more than 5 million viewed and shared over the past month.

Comedy Central, which has politics-heavy “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report,” saw its online audience nearly double during the political conventions and had an additional 50 percent growth during the week ending Oct. 12, according to Nielsen Online.

TheDailyShow.com jumped from the No. 4 cable TV Web site to No. 2 for the week ending Oct. 18, says online tracking firm Hitwise.

NBC says it has streamed more than 47 million “SNL” Fey-as-Palin videos on NBC-affiliated NBC.com and Hulu.com.

NBC, the No. 3 broadcaster in TV viewers, has been the No. 1 network on the Web for two straight weeks, according to Hitwise.