Saturday Night Live To Become a Primetime Player For NBC

The Saturday night schedules for most of the major networks have become a dumping ground for reruns so people can either see what they missed or give them another chance to set their DVRs for shows that conflict with their other season passes. So starting next week, NBC will be running “Best Of” versions of one of their most profitable franchises, which also just happens to air new episodes, live, just 30 minutes or as after the newly packaged old stuff ends.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Saturday Night Live specials will start airing from 9:30-11pm ET, which will bookend local news broadcasts with a double dose of SNL. The first one will be SNL: The Best of Will Ferrell on December 15th, followed by The Best of Chris Farley, The Best of 2006-2007, and SNL Goes Commericial on the next three Saturdays.

Recently, SNL specials have been a major part of NBC’s sweeps strategy. There have already been three well-received programs which have respectively focused on the 1st five groundbreaking years of the show, the 1980s version, and then the 1990s incarnation. Also, when the show is on hiatus from its regular 11:30pm slot, it is often replaced by clip shows, most recently when it aired a special of greatest Thanksgiving-themed bits. So it comes as no surprise that NBC would want to make the show a part of its regular primetime special.

There is one twist to this news which is a little unexpected: It has nothing to do with the writers strike. Apparently, this idea has been in the works for a while, and the timing has just worked out. I hope that when this becomes a regular part of the schedule, they’ll go back to older cast members for “Best Of” shows, like Ackroyd and Belushi, as well as guest hosts like Steve Martin, to keep the specials going. It will also be fun if they experiment with other SNL-related material, like the infamous SNL Marti Gras special, which is being released on DVD this holiday season as part of the show’s complete second-season box set.

It’s nice to see NBC thinking outside the box for a night of television that has been tossed on the scrap heap. It’s also a good way to remind people that the next “Best Of” moment might only be a half-hour away, so there’s not need to touch the remote.