Is Saturday Night Live In Danger After Colbert’s Cancellation? The SNL 50 EP Has Thoughts

I’ve been shocked at a lot of surprise cancellations before. From behind the scenes problems to elevated production costs to sagging ratings, shows get the big ugly axe for a variety of reasons all the time. I’m not sure, however, that I ever remember one generating as much collective shock as The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’s recent cancellation. No one seemed to see that coming at all, and now, people are asking questions about other cultural institutions long seen as untouchable, even Saturday Night Live.

The popular sketch comedy show recently celebrated its milestone 50th anniversary, and while the audience isn’t as large as it once was, its most popular breakout sketches still regularly become touchpoints a wide cross section of the population discusses and bonds over. But does that mean it’s immune from the pressures so many other long-running shows are facing? No. At least that’s the takeaway from an interview Morgan Neville did with Deadline. The documentarian recently executive produced the SNL 50 doc for Peacock, and he was asked if SNL should be worried about Colbert’s cancellation. Here’s a portion of what he said..

So, that’s the problem for both SNL and for many of the legacy shows. The longer you’re around and the more success you see, the more your budget goes up. Instead of entry level people making near the minimum, you eventually have seasoned hands who have been around decades and command a more elevated rate. Audiences have learned to expect a certain quality from the sets, from the make-up and from all the little details. It’s not so easy to just cut costs in those areas.

The rapid shift in how people consume entertainment (as well as all the competition) has made it much harder to get a ton of people to tune into something live, but on the bright side, it has also opened up opportunities for viewers to see things on other platforms. YouTube is the most prominent of those options. Both SNL and The Late Show have started generating many millions of views on the platform, but unfortunately, ad rates just haven’t caught up yet, which CBS specifically called out when discussing The Late Show.

One thing helping SNL is almost certainly how friendly creator and showrunner Lorne Michaels is with the network. There have been some times over the years where it’s gotten a little bit contentious, but by all accounts, things are in a very good place now. That was not the case for The Late Show and likely had some bearing on the way that turned out.

Michaels, however, is not going to be around forever. There’s already a lot of talk about transition plans and what might happen when he retires. Neville touched on that during his convo, as well, saying no one knows what is going to happen when he’s gone.

Personally, I think SNL is going to transition to another showrunner and will last for the foreseeable future. NBC has shown no signs of abandoning The Tonight Show, which assumedly faces some of the same issues as The Late Show, and SNL is among the more popular shows on new media. At some point, more advertising money is going to flow in that direction, and that’s going to be a win for the show.

All we know for sure right now though is that SNL will return for its 51st season on October 4th. Michaels and company haven’t announced which cast members are going to return, which hasn’t helped with all the rumors, but at this point, it seems likely the bulk of the No Ready For Primetime Players will return.