An Election to Laugh About

The presidential race is proving that in television a rousing election lifts all political programs — especially the funny ones.

For late-night comedy shows specializing in topical satire, the rabid attention that millions of viewers are giving to the presidential (and vice presidential) contest is providing a jolt of ratings and creative energy.

“It does feel very intense,” said Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Thanks to widely talked-about impersonations of the candidates, especially Tina Fey’s dead-on portrayal of Gov. Sarah Palin, “SNL” has seen its audience explode this fall.

“I think the gods smiled on us with the Palin thing,” Mr. Michaels said. “Like if he’d chosen Romney, I think it would be completely different.” In referring to Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential contender, Mr. Michaels added, “As exciting as a Romney-Biden debate would have been, it just would have been politics as usual.”

Ratings for the show, in its 34th season, are up 50 percent among all viewers this season, a move that defies every viewing trend in network television. Last week’s episode was seen by more than 10 million people, a figure that would make it a hit in prime time. Looking to capitalize on the surge in interest, “SNL” will have the first of three prime-time specials Thursday at 9:30, devoted specifically to the presidential race.

“There’s never been an election where we’ve been at the center of so much, except possibly Bush-Gore in 2000,” Mr. Michaels said. “It’s great for comedy, and it’s also great for broadcast television because it’s what we do at our best.”

It’s not bad for cable television either, in the form of the twin news-oriented late-night shows on Comedy Central. “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” reached record numbers of viewers last month, even topping some of the broadcast networks’ late-night shows.

“I think people are in a highly emotional state because of the election,” Mr. Stewart said. “It certainly is energizing the comedy world.”

“The Daily Show” averaged just under two million viewers for September, by far its best performance ever. For the first time in the course of a month the show had more viewers per episode than NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” That show, since it’s on a broadcast network, is available in about 15 million more homes than “The Daily Show” (although “Late Night” is also on 90 minutes later, in the 12:30 slot, when far fewer viewers are awake and available).

More significant, and perhaps a sign of where many of the election fanatics are coming from, “SNL” and the Comedy Central shows have been powerful draws for younger audiences.

Among viewers between the ages of 18 and 34 “SNL” has improved to almost 2.1 million viewers per episode this year, from 1.4 million viewers last year. In the category of men ages 18 to 34, the prime comedy category, “The Daily Show” averaged 486,000 viewers in September, with “The Colbert Report” at 438,000. The closest viewership among broadcast network shows in that category were “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” on NBC with 321,000 and Mr. O’Brien’s show with 215,000. “Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS had just 179,000 in that group; “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” which begins just after midnight on ABC, had 125,000; and “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson,” in the 12:30 slot on CBS, had 108,000.

“Everyone has been saying that more young people have been into this election,” said Michele Ganeless, the president of Comedy Central. “I think we’re proving it.”

Mr. Leno, who has been making jokes about elections on “Tonight” since serving as a guest host in the 1980s, said, “I feel like the audience has grown up a little bit.” Interest in the race is high, and the comedy targets, led by Ms. Palin, are especially rich, though “we’ve just been through Bush and Clinton,” he said. “That’s kind of the golden age for comedy.”

That interest is so intense that some shows have changed production plans to accommodate it. Last week Mr. Letterman, who normally tapes two programs on Mondays so he can take Fridays off, ditched that plan and taped a show Friday to include comedy based on the vice presidential debate.

“The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” took a more drastic step, canceling long-planned vacations next week. “It’s our busy season,” Mr. Stewart said. (The shows will also offer a joint special live on election night, Nov. 4, at 10.)

Doug Herzog, the president of Comedy Central’s parent company, MTV Networks Entertainment Group, said, “This is the equivalent of an Olympic year for us.”

Producers at all the shows have noticed that booking the candidates has paid off all year. Even when Senator John McCain did not show up for Mr. Letterman’s show two weeks ago, the absence kicked up Mr. Letterman’s rating — and he extended it into a comedy bit, lambasting Mr. McCain almost every night for “pulling a bailout” on him.

But Mr. Letterman’s show is actually suffering some from the election fascination, because ABC’s competing news program, “Nightline,” providing election-related reports most nights, has had its best month since it went to its post-Ted Koppel format in 2005. “Nightline” has regularly been attracting more viewers than Mr. Letterman.

The comedy shows like Mr. Letterman’s, which do not specialize in politics, are at a disadvantage for the moment. As Mr. O’Brien said: “For some of the shows politics is their bread and butter. Shows like mine and Jay’s and Dave’s also do different things. Sometimes I have to move on to something silly, like me jumping into a vat of cheddar cheese.”

Mr. O’Brien said each show tried to fit the political jokes into its own style. His show, for example, has offered a debate between Ralph Nader and the show’s running character, Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.

“The analogy I like to use is a golf bag,” Mr. O’Brien said. “There’s a perfect club for each shot. Right now the ball is close to the hole, and Lorne Michaels has a putter.”

What is not included in the regular television ratings numbers is the almost equally large Internet following for the best political material. Each of this fall’s political sketches on “SNL,” for example, has been downloaded millions of times.

The “SNL” high point was the sketch starring Ms. Fey as Ms. Palin during her interview with Katie Couric. The number of Internet views for that has exceeded the almost 10 million people who watched the telecast. Last week’s debate parody, which featured Ms. Fey’s Palin facing off against Jason Sudeikis as Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., has already been seen more than five million times on the Web.

Seth Meyers, the head writer for “SNL,” said this election was ideal for comedy because so many people are engaged with the story. “It’s the best for a writer when 70 million people see a debate because everyone knows the lines. We did 11.5 minutes on that debate sketch last week. We couldn’t do that if everybody hadn’t watched it.”

The show is counting on similar interest in Tuesday night’s McCain-Obama debate to drive interest in the probable debate sketch in Thursday’s prime-time special.

Interest in this presidential race was extremely high even when “SNL” returned in February after the writers’ strike. “We came back with such ferocity that we were right in the middle of it again,” Mr. Michaels said. But the addition of Ms. Palin to the mix seems to have kicked the comedy into a higher gear. “She was a new character,” Mr. O’Brien said. “That was huge.”

Ms. Fey’s take on Ms. Palin has all but defined the candidate, who has resisted media coverage. Mr. Michaels said that circumstance may not be all bad for Ms. Palin. He noted that Will Ferrell’s performance on the show as George W. Bush never damaged that candidate, malapropisms and all.

“So much of it is casting,” Mr. Michaels said. “If Will Ferrell plays George Bush, they like Bush more. ‘Strategery’ was entirely forgivable because he seemed like a guy they liked.”

The impersonations are what give “SNL” its biggest advantage in an election year. “The people on the other shows who have to do it every day, they take little bites,” Mr. Michaels said. “We come in with a big take, and we have people playing them, and that’s a different approach.”

Do those comic takes have any impact on the election? “I think we offer some perspective,” Mr. Michaels said. “But when people start getting into how we’re changing things, I think we’re not. I think we affect the media and maybe influence some people. I think we’re a safety valve. Some pressure gets let off by what we do.”

Mr. Leno said, “The real key is joke first; message, if at all, second. ” He added that the mistake a lot of comics make is believing “that the audience is interested in what we have to say.”

Mr. Stewart said: “It’s always a feeling of high expectations. When the focus of the country turns to matters you’ve been dealing with, for a moment you could almost believe what you do matters. Then you go back and remember: Oh, yeah, we don’t.”