Saturday Night Live is expanding its reach beyond New York City. The 50-year-old sketch show announced plans for a new international spinoff.
Starting in 2026, Lorne Michaels will produce a British version of Saturday Night Live. The series willa ir on Sky and feature an all-British cast along with UK hosts and musical guests.
A British version of SNL has been in development since 2021. The Sky networkis owned by Comcast, the same media giant that owns Saturday Night Live's home network, NBC.
The newest version of SNL joins a list of other international remakes. Saturday Night Live also has spinoffs in China, Germany, Italy, and South Korea.
British stars will have a new Saturday Night Live home
The U.K. already has plenty of options when it comes to late-night TV promotion. Programs like The Graham Norton Show allow celebrities to sit, discuss their projects, and show audiences a different side to themselves.
SNL UK will take that to a new level. It will also give British celebrities the opportunity to promote their projects at home, rather than stopping by Studio 8H in New York City.
Recent British stars to host Saturday Night Live include Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adele, and Rege-Jean Page. British musical acts have also been a mainstay on SNL for decades.
So could this mean the original Saturday Night Live will miss out on these kinds of stars? It's hard to say, and that's for the booking department at SNL to figure out.
But it does mean that we're going to get even more sketch comedy and more chances to see the world's biggest stars bring some laughs.