Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late-night 90-minute American variety show based in New York City that has been broadcast by NBC on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975. In Canada it is simulcast on the Global Television Network. It is broadcast live in the Atlantic, Eastern, and Central time zones, with a two or three hour delay for stations in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones. It is one of the longest-running network programs in American television history. Each week, the show's cast is joined by a guest host and musical act.
Originally, the show was called NBC's Saturday Night until NBC retitled its show in 1976 (the Saturday Night Live title having been previously attached to a short-lived variety show hosted by Howard Cosell and airing on rival network ABC). The first show with the new title was broadcast on March 26, 1977.
The show — broadcast from Studio 8H at the GE Building (called the RCA Building until 1988) in New York's Rockefeller Center — has been the launching place for many major American comedy stars of the last thirty years. It was created by Canadian Lorne Michaels who, excluding a hiatus from Season 6 through Season 10, has produced and written for the show and remains its executive producer (Jean Doumanian produced almost all of Season 6, and Dick Ebersol produced the last episode of Season 6, and all of Seasons 7-10).
NBC and Broadway Video share the copyright to every episode of the show made thus far. From 1990 until 2004, Comedy Central and its predecessor Ha! re-aired reruns of the series, after which E! Entertainment Television signed a deal to reruns. Abbreviated thirty and sixty minute versions of the first five seasons aired as The Best of Saturday Night Live in syndication beginning in the 1980s and later on Nick at Nite in 1988, VH1, Comedy Central and E! Entertainment Television. The Best of shows have not aired since 2003.
A late-night comedy show featuring several short skits, parodies of television commercials, a live guest band, and a pop-cultural guest host each week. Many of the SNL players have spun off successful independent comedy and/or movie careers from here. Written by Tad Dibbern
