Though anticipation for Saturday Night Live UK may be even higher in the U.S. than in its native Britain, exactly when stateside viewers will be able to watch the transatlantic spinoff remains an open question.
U.S. fans were encouraged earlier this month when NBC confirmed that SNL UK would stream on Peacock. The catch: it won’t be available live. Instead, the network said, episodes would arrive the following day.
At first, “next day” suggested a typical overnight drop. But a subsequent NBC press release this morning—announcing that the show’s episode order had been expanded from six to eight—offered a different clue, noting that new episodes would land on Peacock Sunday evening.
So what time Sunday? That’s where things get murky.
Attempts to pin down a specific release time have so far come up empty, with NBC declining to clarify exactly when the show will hit Peacock.
Update: Peacock announced on Sunday afternoon the SNL UK premiere would drop at 9 p.m. ET.
Canada isn’t getting much more clarity on the streaming front. Crave, which will carry the series there, has also declined to specify when episodes will be available on its platform.
But in a previously unreported wrinkle, LateNighter has learned that Canadian viewers will have a more traditional option: SNL UK will air on linear television Saturday nights at 10 p.m. ET on CTV Comedy, which shares a parent company with Crave.
Does that leave the door open for a similar linear broadcast in the U.S.? Perhaps—but not this weekend. NBC is sticking with its previously scheduled lineup, with its SNL Vintage timeslot set to air a repeat of last year’s Ariana Grande/Stevie Nicks episode.
For now it seems American viewers will have to wait—and keep refreshing Peacock.
nbc no longer calls the Saturday prime-time rerun as SNL vintage. they dropped the moniker and only air recent reruns
Doesn’t matter, since all “SNL UK” episodes can’t be guaranteed to be broadcast by NBC uncensored given regulatory concerns — let alone the simulcast in Saturday evenings owing to not just that, but commercial ones.
I can understand why NBC might not want to put the episodes up on Peacock on Saturday nights: To avoid cannibalizing the mothership’s audience, even when the episode airing at 11:30pm is a repeat. They probably should’ve told whoever runs Sky’s YouTube channel, though….
It also wouldn’t surprise me if the episode doesn’t show up till after the NBA game on NBC tomorrow night. Gotta get those eyeballs on the sportsball.
“Simultaneous live-streaming” is hardly an arrangement most of the time, even in the aftermath of the day-and-date revolution that was catalysed by the grossly popular series like “GoT”. And conversely, most of the show’s except for the cable/premiun-cable/streaming stable don’t beam in oh-so-fReE World territories like the UKGB”NI” & Éire because of rapacious scheduling practices of broadcast network TV which consumers in those places are not used to, thereby creating an additional CS & PR burden when they do beam such programming day-&-date. Therefore, the near-ubiquitous day-&-date release of nearly all imported programming has become a thing only in the so-called Global South territories, where concern for torrents and catch-up law enforcement over them remains (ahem!) paramount and hence..
No matter how bizarre/exploitative/wonky the scheduling, a show would land almost-always uncensored on your local streamer within the 24 hours, if not mostly an hour and broadcasting on linear, pay/subscription-based cable/satellite TV networks within a week of its “original publication” (Murican broadcast) unless the Muricans pull an episode and it gets conveyed timely, creating a CS & PR for them as well — but given the aforementioned tidbit about laws, this applies here,too.
Given they don’t have to care for any legal/regulatory reprisal if they stay silent or even lie UNCONVINCINGLY why a particular show’s particular episode was not released on its scheduled day of the week, let alone time either once or twice, or as many times as it occurs.
As for your concern about the digital release, I’m not sure what exactly is your point but yeah — given Universal International Studios (home territory for the Universal Studio Group’s non-North American ops) hasn’t created a YouTube “channel” for the digital presence of the adaptation itself and sky UK is basically doing that job: They could’ve simply geo-restricted all of the “SNL UK”-related episodes from being accessed — “Partner” accounts like sky UK’s obviously have these tools not just with Alphabet’s YouTube, but every other popular Big Tech platform.
You sure you’re right? Why would NBC Entertainment do PR for this one?
It’s Monday
No tins fey
Wtf