Saturday Night Live to Air With Fewer Commercials

The popular late night comedy sketch shows is trying some new approaches to advertising.

Next season, Saturday Night Live plans to make some changes. Not in sketches, musical performances, or pop culture jokes, but instead in the amount of advertising aired during commercial breaks. An NBC Universal spokesperson announced that the popular late night comedy show will cut two commercial breaks – about 30% of the ads.

Image Credit: NBC Universal

This is the first of many steps for producers and advertisers to try to reconcile their mutual relationship that the Internet has infringed upon. NBC Universal explained that their main audience is younger and more impatient. The target generations are accustomed to watching television and other media on laptops and cell phones via the Internet. They’re habituated to the lack of commercials and breaks from shows. NBC is attempting to get closer to that on Saturday Night Live by cutting breaks. Instead, the show will work with advertisers to incorporate products into storylines and sketches.

Rather than advertisers paying NBC for a thirty-second commercial slot during SNL, they will pay to work with the writers and producers to integrate their products into the show. The method has already been attempted a few times in previous SNL sketches and on Fox’s “Empire”, where they worked with Pepsi to weave their drink into a three-episode story arc. SNL will be the first to try it on a regular basis, and NBC Universal may inaugurate the approach to advertising in other late night shows.

But what does this mean for Saturday Night Live itself? The show runs smoothly because of the commercial breaks that allow for set and costume changes. If the structure reforms, and one sketch moves immediately into another, how will the crew and cast handle such a shift? My prediction: the sketches will either be longer or contain fewer characters.

If the sketches are longer, I think it’s more likely for the comedy to get lost. Writing a longer sketch means writing more jokes, and writing more jokes means there’s a greater chance for the jokes to miss. They would be risking their comedy for longer airtime. The other option, fewer characters, is also a chance to lose the jokes. During the blocks with two or more sketches, the crew and cast will be airing on one set while setting up another. This means that only half the crew and cast can be involved with what’s happening on the air.

Comedy is always a risk. There’s always a chance the jokes will miss. I love SNL and usually think they’re hilarious. But if the longer airtime means less comedy, then, over time, it will lose its reputation and the target audience will watch it even less.

Will the new advertising plan successfully set a precedent for other shows to rebuild their money from advertisers? Will writers and producers be willing to sacrifice storylines for the sake of integrating products? I predict we will soon see a major change in the way advertising is done on television, and this very well might be it.