Chances are, if you grew up watching (or have ever watched) Saved by the Bell, mention of it alone has the ear-worm of a theme song instantaneously stuck in your head.
As part of NBC’s new upcoming streaming service, Peacock, the network is rebooting the 90s high school sitcom following Kelly Kapowski, Zack Morris, (and of course Screech) and friends. In the following CivicScience study of 4,300 respondents 13+, likelihood to watch the reboot is at 7% saying they are at least somewhat likely to watch. What’s interesting is another 11% aren’t sure.
Those with high likelihood of signing up for Peacock have a high likelihood of watching the Saved by the Bell reboot. Good news for NBC is that this reboot will likely drive sign ups significantly.
In terms of who is likely to watch the rebooted show?
It’s young Gen Z, older Millennials, and some young Gen Xers who are most likely to watch the reboot. Perhaps younger Gen Z has watched the show via syndication with their parents (or binged on Hulu) and is nostalgic about an era they didn’t experience first-hand, while older Millennials and younger Gen Xers likely want to tune in for actual nostalgia over something they grew up with.
To look into the above hypothesis, the data show that, indeed, Hulu users are more likely to tune in for the reboot on Peacock than non-Hulu users.
Nostalgia or not, the likelihood of watching is nearly identical between the sexes.
A small sidenote: Kelly Kapowski and Zack Morris are tied as the top favorite characters in the OG show.
One thing that is different between the sexes is: women are more likely to favor Zack Morris, and men are more likely to favor Kelly Kapowski. 🙂
NBC’s decision to reboot Saved by the Bell will certainly drive viewership to their new platform, set to launch this summer. The most interesting finding in this study is the younger generational pull towards the reboot.
