Last Saturday, Druski became the first creator to host Saturday Night Live—just one week after Obsession’s Inde Navarrette hosted—garnering the show’s highest rated episode in two years.
Zooming out: Viewership reports indicate cable TV is falling behind streaming, and streaming is falling behind YouTube. But while streaming’s competitive approach has been to poach creators from YouTube, legacy TV seems to view YouTube as another distribution channel.
Live from your feed: Today, SNL’s YouTube channel has 17.5M subscribers. While roughly 4–5M people watch live on NBC each week, the show pulls over 100M views per week on YouTube.
Earlier this year, NBC reported Saturday Night Live Season 51 reached 8.2B total video views across Peacock, YouTube, and social platforms. According to VidIQ, the channel received about 2.5B views over the same period from YouTube alone.
What’s emerging is a symbiotic relationship. SNL is increasingly borrowing from the creator economy—finding cast members who got their start as creators (like Jane Wickline, Grace Reiter, and Veronika Slowikowska) and tapping into audiences who consume content through their feeds.
At the same time, creators have the opportunity to replicate SNL’s 52-season playbook: find a winning format, build a cohort of talent, and package every segment to travel beyond the original platform.
Do you watch 'SNL' live or in feed?
