Those anticipatory months of anxiously waiting for the next interval of your favorite show are often more engaging than the premier itself. You remember hearing when the show got renewed for another season, the teaser trailer fueling your excitement and those countless days waiting for a release date to be announced. Finally, on the night of the first episode’s debut, the exhilarating thought of diving back into the plot is almost comforting. Ten minutes into the episode, the thrill subsides as the style seems foreign to what made the previous seasons so amusing. Unfortunately, it’s only natural for time to wither the foundations a show sets in its early works; as directors, writers and actors erode from a project, scarcely any elements remain besides its title.
Like a televised Ship of Theseus, “Saturday Night Live” has maintained structure alone since its early days. From poking fun at, to marketing towards and now casting Generation Z, the show’s target audience and methods of appealing to it continue to adapt and experiment every night; each episode containing vicissitudes, with sketches fluctuating between beloved trends to infamous embarrassments, failing live. Although, despite the show’s title, its live audiences have been exponentially decreasing for years, especially amongst Gen Z.
“I think it’s bigger during the political seasons, but most of the time they’re not really widespread,” Owen Winter (’26) said. “Nowadays, people who grew up with the show are like ‘oh it’s not funny anymore.’”
Evident in Newsweek’s “Is ‘SNL’ Considered Funny? Only One in Five Thinks So” or The Suffolk Journal’s “OPINION: SNL is not funny anymore”, many articles support the belief “SNL” is in a downward spiral, offering scarcely any sign of hope, and viewership has been declining each week. Recently with an episode on Nov. 9 at about 4 million live viewers, roughly 200,000 less views than the previous week. While this seems like an adverse decline, it may simply present a shift in how audiences view media. Before the next episode aired, combining all the views the “SNL” Youtube account had gained from its clips of that episode resulted in roughly 26 million views (the show is also active on X, Instagram, TikTok etc). Granted, social media views cannot be directly compared to television viewership, but the discrepancy is enough to suggest a change in how Americans consume “SNL.”
“I usually watch it the day after on a Sunday using clips on Youtube. I think it’s just easier that way, because not everything in an episode is really good, so it’s easier just to use clips,” Winter said.
With modern television relying on streaming platforms yet maintaining a weekly status, the concept of staying up till 11:30 p.m. to watch a show that’ll have the same clips available for free the next day is justifiably bizarre. This consumer style is abundant among our student body; according to a survey of 203 Madison students, 65% of students watch “SNL” and 84% of those who watch it do so through clips on social media.
“I think a lot more of the sketches include Gen Z stuff,” Jules Kopp (’25) said. “Before it was whatever random stuff popped into the producer’s heads, but now it’s like they’re really trying to get more younger people with how they’re mimicking different trends and using the weird slang we have, they’re reaching more.”
“SNL” has evidently begun shifting its primary audience: with sketches parodying young stars such as Rachel Sennot, Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter. While many feel “SNL” is nearing its demise, it may finally be concluding a prolonged period of transition.