'SNL' 40th Anniversary Was the Most Tweeted TV Episode Ever

Facebook's most-mentioned names were Kanye West, Will Ferrell, Miley Cyrus, Eddie Murphy and Jimmy Fallon.

Saturday Night Live just nabbed itself another milestone — its 40th anniversary special broke two Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings records.

Over 449,000 users in the U.S. sent 1.3 million #SNL40-related tweets during the measurement period (show plus three hours before and after), according to Nielsen. These tweets were seen 188 million times by a total of 9.1 million people, topping the night's other Twitter-friendly shows, AMC's The Walking Dead and ABC's The Bachelor.

With Sunday's three-and-a-half-hour special airing outside its usual Saturday night timeslot, the star-studded reunion not only earned SNL its highest unique audience of any series episode in the 2014-2015 season, but also the highest number of impressions of any series episode to date (which is since Sept. 2013, when Nielsen began its Twitter TV Ratings measurements).

On TV, the NBC special nearly matched last Sunday's Grammys in its massive draw among viewers and adults 18-49. Fast National returns from Nielsen Media give the three hours that aired in primetime an average 7.8 rating among adults 18-49 and 23.1 million viewers. it currently stands as the network’s top-rated primetime entertainment telecast, excluding post-Super Bowl programs, since the Will & Grace finale more than eight years ago.

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