A comedy show is in business for fifty years, and the only off-color appearance was a musician with a political opinion? As if we ever needed a demonstration of how bland and conventional SNL really is, regardless of the image they would like to convey.SNL has had a great number of off-color appearances. Sinead O'Connor was not the reason they added the delay. SNL was already on tape delay by the time she appeared on the show. She slipped past the network censor because they didn't recognize what she was doing until the images had already been broadcast. (Per Wikipedia, she used a different photo during rehearsals. Her stunt was not edited out of the West coast tape-delayed broadcast but was replaced with rehearsal footage in repeats.)
Richard Pryor was the reason that SNL was on tape delay. In fact, per PBS, he's the reason most live broadcasts are on a several second delay. (Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake are the reason that half-time shows at sports events are now also on tape delay.) https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/6feba07a-e711-40ab-...
While many skits on SNL can be bland and conventional, a great many of their skits are classics. And especially during political cycles, SNL skits can define a political candidate or campaign. (See, e.g., Dan Quayle and spelling, Al Gore and the lockbox, Sarah Palin and seeing Russia, John McCain as himself on SNL.)