Saturday Night Live UK experienced a dramatic downturn in viewership for its third episode, registering a 36 per cent week-on-week decline.
The series – a much-hyped British adaptation of the long-running US variety show – launched on Sky last month, with the premiere episode, hosted by 30 Rock’s Tina Fey, attracting 226,000 viewers.
On Saturday (4 April), the series’ third episode managed to pull in 130,100 viewers, down from 205,000 the previous week, according to data by viewership monitoring organisation BARB, reported by Deadline.
Hosted by Nightcrawler actor Riz Ahmed, the programme pulled in an overall audience share of 1.8 per cent, and still exceeded the average viewership for Sky One in the timeslot.
Ahmed will be followed by comedian Jack Whitehall, who is set to host the series’ fourth episode, joined by singer-songwriter Jorja Smith as the musical guest.
During Saturday’s episode of SNL UK, sketches included a parody of UK prime minister Keir Starmer, and a riff on the popular BBC reality series The Traitors.
Since debuting last month, SNL UK has received mixed reviews from viewers and critics.
Reviewing the first episode, The Independent’s Nick Hilton wrote: “While SNL represents the quintessence of the American comedic establishment, it is not a title that has much Clapham omnibus cut-through here in Britain. It’s a bit of a shame, then, that the show plays it so safe with the formula, importing a commodity that has evolved from an anti-establishment brawl to a slick launchpad for franchise comedians.
“[Lorne] Michaels (producing from afar), director Liz Clare and head writer Jonno Johnson have done a good job putting together an intriguing panoply of talents, and they deserve credit for resisting the lure of bigger names who might’ve been tempted by a short run.”
He added: “But they don’t invest in much of a shake-up to the formula – host’s monologue, timely skits, fake adverts, musical guests, and all that jazz – which means SNL UK lacks its own spark of irreverence. At best it shows what it’s learnt from a half-century of its New York cousin; at worst it seems like tepid cosplay.”
SNL UK continues at 10pm on Saturday 11 April on Sky One. Episodes are available to stream after airing on Sky and NOW.
