MW What's the secret to the staying power of 'Saturday Night Live'? It was made for social media all along.

By Lukas I. Alpert

The show's U.K. spinoff was just renewed for a second season, and the sketch-comedy stalwart continues to be relevant with younger audiences as its clips go viral online

Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman as the Coneheads in 1975, during the first season of "Saturday Night Live."

For a show that's over 50 years old, "Saturday Night Live" has aged pretty well.

The sketch-comedy mainstay remains a ratings juggernaut, and the version it recently exported to the United Kingdom was renewed Thursday for a second season. But the secret to its continued success may be in how well it translates in the era of social media.

The TikTok channel for the long-running NBC $(CMCSA)$ show has 14 million followers, and on YouTube, the "SNL" channel has 17 million subscribers. Posts on both platforms routinely draw millions of views.

That has allowed the show to meet younger people where they are and to stay relevant with viewers in the 18-to-34 age bracket that advertisers covet.

"When it was created 51 years ago, 'SNL' was almost perfectly designed for the internet," said Robert Thompson, the director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "Its structure is ideal for the age of TikTok in that you can easily chop it up into little pieces."

Younger people are increasingly gravitating to short-form video platforms like TikTok and YouTube $(GOOG)$ $(GOOGL)$ for their entertainment in place of traditional television and even streaming services. A recent survey by YouGov found that 69% of 16- to 24-year-olds routinely watch clips from shows on social-media platforms rather than full-length episodes on other platforms.

That means few younger viewers likely ever watch "Saturday Night Live" on Saturday night.

"SNL" still draws a strong audience on linear TV, however. The show's 50th season last year drew an average of 8.1 million viewers per episode, its highest ratings in three years, according to Nielsen. Broadcast ratings are lower this year but still regularly top 4 million per episode. Those figures calculate how many times the show is watched live and on streaming platforms over the next seven days.

And the version of "SNL" launched this season in the U.K. - a move many considered a gamble - has proved enough of a success for British cable operator Sky to renew it for another season.

"It's fair to say people doubted SNL would work in the UK," Phil Edgar Jones, Sky's executive director for unscripted originals, said in a statement. "But SNL UK is Sky's most talked about show of the year. It's now firmly part of the cultural conversation and we're thrilled the show will be returning."

Lorne Michaels, "SNL's" longtime executive producer, said the renewal proved that the show "keeps getting better every week."

The success of the U.K. spinoff has not necessarily been driven by linear ratings - which have hovered around 500,000 viewers per episode, according to Sky - but it has gained great traction on social media, where clips are viewed millions of times.

Thompson at Syracuse said "SNL" and other late-night shows were far better engineered to meet the needs of a changing viewing landscape than other television staples like hourlong dramas and 30-minute comedies.

"You cannot chop up 'NCIS' or 'CSI' in the same way," he said. "The stalwarts of linear TV are really threatened by this new model, which is hostile to their very structure."

-Lukas I. Alpert

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May 07, 2026 15:07 ET (19:07 GMT)

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