Comcast’s Sky Group is working with “Saturday Night Live” creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels on a British adaptation of the light night sketch comedy show.
“Saturday Night Live UK” is expected to launch in 2026, Comcast said on Thursday. The format will remain essentially the same, involving a mixture of unpredictable sketch comedy and performances by musical guests, but fronted by British comedians and bands.
“For over 50 years Saturday Night Live has held a unique position in TV and in our collective culture, reflecting and creating the global conversation, all under the masterful comedic guidance of Lorne Michaels,” Cécile Frot-Coutaz, the CEO of Sky Studios and the company’s Chief Content Officer, said in a statement. “The show has discovered and nurtured countless comedy and musical talents over the years, and we are thrilled to be partnering with Lorne and the SNL team to bring an all-British version of the show to U.K. audiences next year — all live from London on Saturday night!”
International adaptations of the show are not unusual: Broadcasters around the world — including those in France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Italy, Egypt and Spain — have looked to the Saturday Night Live sketch comedy model for their own domestic versions of the program, sometime leveraging the “Saturday Night” name and time slot, with mixed results.
In the United Kingdom, an effort was made in the mid-1980s to launch a variation of Saturday Night Live — called “Saturday Night” — on the new broadcast network Channel 4, which was co-produced with London Weekend Television. The show ran from 1985 to 1988, and was briefly revived by rival broadcaster ITV in 1996.
The American version of the show itself has occasionally aired in the United Kingdom on NBC-owned or affiliated networks, including on the long-shuttered NBC Europe (formerly NBC Super Channel) and CNBC Europe. The show was also briefly available on Peacock, which was removed from the United Kingdom last year.
The forthcoming launch of “SNL UK” will debut on Comcast’s pay TV network Sky Max next year, though few other details have been revealed, including who will star in the show or which guest hosts and musical acts have been lined up for its first few episodes.
