The multimillion dollar Saturday Night Live UK gamble
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
4.7 • 9.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | NPR. |
| 0:02.0 | This is the indicator from Planet Money. |
| 0:13.7 | I'm Whalen Wong, and here with me today is British journalist Tel Avistram. |
| 0:18.2 | Hey, Waylon. Great to be here. |
| 0:19.7 | Great to have you. |
| 0:21.2 | Now, if you've been anywhere near a TV set in the past 50 years, you've certainly heard this familiar catchphrase. |
| 0:28.9 | Live from New York, it's Saturday Night. |
| 0:33.6 | What you've never heard is this. |
| 0:37.1 | Live from London, it's Saturday Night. |
| 0:39.9 | Wow, yes, plot twist. |
| 0:42.0 | That is, until this past weekend when America's iconic late-night sketch show Saturday Night Live made its British debut. |
| 0:50.3 | And like British humor itself, I couldn't help but be cynical about the prospect. |
| 0:55.5 | I mean, how do you copy an institution as American as apple pie and measure up to a behemoth that's racked up 93 Emmys? |
| 1:03.8 | The answer to that is more Cowbell. |
| 1:07.4 | Today on the show, the multi-million dollar gamble that is SNL UK. |
| 1:16.7 | Saturday Night Live may not be the cutting edge offering it was half a century ago. Many |
| 1:22.4 | once faithful viewers have tuned out, at least on the television. Episodes today average 4 to 5 million viewers. |
| 1:29.8 | That's down from 13 million in the late 70s. |
| 1:33.0 | So why a British version now? |
| 1:35.8 | Well, in an era of mergers and acquisitions, |
| 1:38.9 | one buyout has paved the way for this project. |
| 1:41.5 | In 2018, American media giant Comcast purchased the UK media network |
... |
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