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SNL To FINALLY Air Live On The West Coast After 42 Years
Saturday Night Live, a long-running comedy sketch show that somehow emerged as the only true winner of America's 2016 presidential election, announced some big news Thursday. After more than four decades of stubbornly refusing to allow the telecast to be aired live on the West Coast, the show will be broadcasting the final four episodes of their 42nd season live in every U.S. time zone. This will be a first for the NBC show.
Beginning April 15, the show will air at 11:30 p.m. in New York City (as per usual), and then—instead of being re-broadcast hours later like a stale baguette—it will simultaneously air AT THE VERY SAME TIME in the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones (i.e. 10:30 p.m. CT, 9:30 p.m. MT and 8:30 p.m. PT). SNL will be repeated at 11:30 p.m. in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, TVLine reports.
Why the change? Well, according to Uproxx, SNL is having its most-watched season in 24 years (Thanks, Obama Trump). After years of semi-relevance, people suddenly care about what's happening on SNL and, as Uproxx's Alan Sepinwall (who broke the story) puts it, "it seemed time to stop letting the good people of California have the whole show spoiled for them on Twitter."
“SNL—enjoying its most popular season in two decades—is part of the national conversation, and we thought it would be a great idea to broadcast to the west and mountain time zones live at the same time it’s being seen in the east and central time zones,” Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, NBC Entertainment said in a statement. “That way, everyone is in on the joke at the same time. Kudos to Lorne Michaels, the producers and cast for making SNL one of the most relevant and anticipated shows in the zeitgeist.”
Those final four episodes will be hosted by Jimmy Fallon (April 15), Chris Pine (May 6), Melissa McCarthy (May 13) and Dwayne Johnson (May 20).
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