‘SNL’ Enters Its TikTok Era: Social Reach Explodes as the Show Meets Gen Z Where They Are

As “Saturday Night Live” celebrates Season 50 with cameos and callbacks to its storied history — including regular roles for past cast members Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg and Dana Carvey — the show is reaching new relevance for the next generation of viewers by executing a carefully curated social media approach.

A show that has long prided itself on pushing the boundaries of pop culture commentary has adapted, once again, and is meeting Gen Z where they are: on TikTok.

Season 50 has seen the greatest social reach in the show’s history with more than 1 billion views across social platforms so far this season, up 178% from last season. On top of that, social viewership for each of the first four episodes has outperformed last season’s episode average of 106 million.

In the past few weeks, “SNL” content has taken over Gen Z’s For You pages on TikTok, and Ariana Grande’s episode scored the best linear and streaming ratings for the sketch show since 2021 — but her social stats were just as staggering.

The “Bridesmaid Speech” sketch set to the tune of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” dominated the TikTok algorithm the week it was released, garnering over 100 million views and becoming the account’s most-watched video. And Bowen Yang’s Moo Deng spoof of Chappell Roan captivated Gen Z audiences by speaking directly to the chronically online and Roan superfans alike.

Throughout its nearly 50-year history, “SNL” has faced ups and downs in ratings and relevance, but the decline of linear viewership posed a unique challenge for the show. As Gen Z cuts the cord and even exits streaming in favor of social media, the new “SNL” social strategy of embracing short-form video has successfully ensured the show connects with the next generation.

“Viewership isn’t everything, relevance is,” NowThis Editor in Chief and Gen Z-er Michael Vito Valentino told TheWrap. “Social media is the new water cooler.”

To say Gen Z’s viewership habits differ from the generations before them would be a gross understatement. Nearly half of Gen Z respondents in a Deloitte survey said they prefer to watch social-first content as opposed to traditional entertainment, and about 52% of Gen Z respondents had canceled a paid streaming service in the last year. The preference for smartphones for video viewing is even more pronounced among Generation Alpha and Gen Z, with 88% of those aged 13-24 using the small devices for weekly video viewing weekly.

Season 50 of "SNL" has consistently garnering more social views per episode than last season’s episode average of 106 million. Social viewership numbers are pulled Tuesdays post-live show (Credit: TheWrap)
Season 50 of “SNL” has consistently garnered more social views per episode than last season’s episode average of 106 million. Social viewership numbers are pulled Tuesdays post-live show (Credit: TheWrap)

“SNL” hasn’t been immune to the decline in linear viewership. But the show has continually adjusted its strategy to try and stay up with the times. In 2017, “SNL” aired live coast-to-coast for the first time, allowing west coast viewers to tune in at 8:30 p.m. And full episodes of “SNL” stream live on Peacock as they air, offering an on-demand streaming component.

Last season the show scored an average of 7.9 million viewers across linear and streaming, a 3% uptick from the previous season. And the Season 50 premiere notched the show’s biggest audience since 2020.

And now, while older viewers still tune in on linear or streaming, the show’s social media blitz is effectively getting clips in front of Gen Z just in time for the Sunday morning debrief, ensuring cultural relevance with the much-courted demographic.

For Michael Keaton and Billie Eilish’s Oct. 19 episode, “SNL” brought back a popular format from the “Bad Guy” singer’s first time hosting. The cast created nearly four minutes worth of TikTok content to imitate the neverending doom scroll that social users fall into. Cast members spoofed influencers like Harry Daniels, “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper and even Kamala HQ.

The “SNL” social team broke up the sketch into 13 separate TikToks on their social platform, reaching over 112 million views as of Wednesday. By mocking online creators on their own platform, the show engaged Gen Z in an organic manner.

This workflow has been replicated throughout Season 50, as the “SNL” team specifically selects clips they feel will resonate with Gen Z to post on social media, an individual familiar with the process told TheWrap.

“They didn’t adjust the format to fit ‘SNL.’ They’re adjusting ‘SNL’ to fit culture, which I think is really smart,” a former SNL staffer told TheWrap.

“By showing that they understand the trends on the platform and that they are moving into it is earning them that brand affinity,” McKenzie Fields, director of strategy at Reach Agency, told TheWrap.

“Gen Z aren’t just partaking in the creator economy from an audience perspective. They’re actively a part of it because they’re creating content themselves,” Valentino added. “It also allows for the audience to feel like, ‘Oh my God, imagine if SNL makes fun of me and my TikToks?’”

Shades of Millennial-focused digital shorts

Pivoting to reach a generation where they are isn’t new for “SNL.” The TikTok explosion brings to mind The Lonely Island’s surge in popularity in the 2000s with their digital shorts, particularly “Lazy Sunday.” The comedy troupe made up of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone spoke directly to Millennials who were navigating the early days of online video and YouTube, and their shorts became so popular that Lorne Michaels demanded they create a new one every week.

The show eventually put the digital shorts on YouTube in their entirety, ushering “SNL” into the digital age.

“Audiences’ attention spans have changed, so they’re just changing with the times, as they always have done since the very beginning,” Valentino said.

It also helps that “SNL” has been embracing Gen Z cast members the past couple of seasons, with Jane Wickline joining the cast this season after first gaining popularity on TikTok. She’s the show’s first bona fide “TikTok star” cast member with 1 million followers on the platform. But she certainly won’t be the last.

It’s still unclear if the show can translate this booming social viewership to linear or streaming viewership on Peacock, which would drive meaningful revenue for NBCUniversal. The snippets of social content are just a teaser for the 90 minutes worth of sketches produced live week-to-week.

But Fields believes that this consistent, platform-specific social strategy will drive curious viewers to the episode in its entirety. “They have designed their content ecosystem in a way that helps push towards that linear moment,” she said.

And with “SNL” building to a massive 50th anniversary special in February, getting Gen Z’s attention couldn’t come at a better time.

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