“Saturday Night Live U.K.” is set to be renewed for a second season.
Although Sky declined to comment, multiple sources confirmed the news to Variety, saying that despite rocky ratings the Comcast-owned network are thrilled with the show.
Certainly Sky CEO Dana Strong, who has described the series as a “a point of pride for me,” has been championing it since the beginning. She was even in the studio audience for Nicola Coughlan-hosted Episode 5 when it returned after a one-week hiatus last month. Other guests in the audience included J.J. Abrams and his son, suggesting the live broadcast has become something of a hot ticket for Comcast execs and collaborators who happen to be in town.
The transatlantic spinoff has also had plenty of support from its homegrown older sibling, with “SNL” alum Tina Fey hosting the inaugural episode of the U.K. version while Jimmy Fallon popped up as a guest for Episode 5. “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels and fellow alum Seth Meyers were also heavily involved in development.
A second season order certainly highlights Sky’s continued faith in the show, which was bumped up from a six- to an eight-episode order before it had even launched. As Variety previously reported, each episode has a budget of approximately £2 million ($2.6 million), a sum almost unheard of for a British comedy sketch series.
That’s despite the ratings being something of a rollercoaster, starting with a series high of 226,000 viewers for the Fey-hosted premiere before steadily dropping throughout the next three episodes (hosted by Jamie Dornan, Riz Ahmed and Jack Whitehall respectively). “The Burbs” star Whitehall scored the lowest numbers of the season so far with 119,540 viewers for Episode 4. After a one-week hiatus the ratings have started to climb back up, with Coughlan’s Episode 5 scoring 130,000 viewers and Aimee Lou Wood’s Episode 6 scoring 143,700.
While the numbers are low compared to fellow U.K. broadcasters such as BBC and ITV, who regularly see seven figure ratings for their Saturday night slots, they are actually pretty good for Sky, which is only accessible to paying subscribers, unlike its free-to-air counterparts. And many of the sketches have gone on to garner millions of views on YouTube, the most popular being the Prince Andrew cold open from Episode 2, which has racked up 2.4 million views, followed by last week’s cold open featuring King Charles and Queen Camilla, with 1.7 million views.
“Ted Lasso’s” Hannah Waddingham and “Doctor Who” star Ncuti Gatwa round out the hosting duties for this season.
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