With Saturday Night Live UK now confirmed, all eyes are on how we can watch it. The series is a UK show, set to air on Sky. However, there is some exciting news about licensing, offering hope that it will make it to the United States.
As of right now, the U.S. won’t have a way to few the UK version of the comedy sketch show. Licensing deals will be happening at the moment, and the first is with Canada.
Where will SNL UK stream in Canada?
Bell Media has struck a deal with Sky to air Saturday Night Live UK. The show will head to the Bell Media streaming platform, Crave, which is the home of Heated Rivalry and Shoresy.
LateNighter shared the exciting news, but there isn’t a date on when the show will be available. It’s not clear if SNL UK will air on Saturdays after airing in the UK, or if it will end up airing on a different night. Maybe it will be a week behind. With six episodes, it’s possible that Crave will need to wait for all episodes to air and then they drop at once in Canada.
Hopefully, the deal is similar to Doctor Who with Disney+. While the series aired in the UK on Saturday nights, it would be available on Disney+ on the same day for those internationally.
This is great news for Stateside viewers wanting to watch Saturday Night Live UK
While this doesn’t make it possible for those in the U.S. to watch the series, it is good news. It means that Sky is interested in licensing out the content, and that the deals are looking to be made ahead of time.
One of the most likely places for the series to go is HBO Max. HBO and Sky already have a strong partnership, with Sky licensing Game of Thrones back in the day. However, HBO Max is moving into the UK in March as well, which could disrupt that partnership.
So, the other strong option would be Peacock. After all, Saturday Night Live is an NBCUniversal series with Lorne Michaels involved. The episodes head to Peacock the day after they air in the United States, and with Michaels being behind the UK version of the series, it does make a lot of sense to keep it in the family.
It’s all going to come down to bidding wars. Prime Video is another great home for comedy, and Netflix does a number of comedy specials, so there’s no shortage of streaming platforms to land the series. With Crave getting it in Canada, it does suggest that the UK series is looking to go international right away, though.