NBC’s Salt Lake Affiliate To Carry ‘Saturday Night Live’ For First Time In Fall
NBC’s Utah affiliate KSL-TV has decided that it will air Saturday Night Live, starting this fall. The station, owned by the Mormon church made the announcement on its Facebook page:
Programming Note: Starting this fall, KSL is pleased to welcome Saturday Night Live to its weekly line-up, on Saturday nights at 10:30. More changes and updates to the fall line-up are coming soon – stay with us and we’ll keep you posted!
KSL has not aired SNL since becoming an NBC affiliate in 1995. The station said it was because its own local sports talker, SportsBeat Saturday, had the slot. KSL actually offered to air the show in another time slot — it was NBC that decided instead to move SNL to a different station in the market, reminds The Salt Lake Tribune. With the sport show’s ratings on the wane, KSL decided to welcome SNL to its lineup, in its regular time slot, which is 10:30 PM in that time zone.
KSL is more famous among The Reporters Who Cover Television for its annual announcement about which new NBC series it will not air, owing to content concerns. Most recently, the station ixnayed The New Normal, the comedy about a gay couple having a baby via a surrogate. The station CEO said that one felt “inappropriate on several dimensions, especially during family viewing time.” The station also scrubbed Hannibal, citing its extreme violence — but after airing a handful of episodes. KSL also refused to broadcast NBC’s much-ballyhooed drama series The Playboy Club, saying it did not want to be affiliated with the Playboy brand. Another NBC sitcom that did not pass KSL review was the network’s remake of the Britcom Coupling — though even Jeff Zucker, then an NBC honcho, eventually agreed that one “sucked.”
It’s that history of content-cancellations that caused people to react to the station’s news on its Facebook page thusly: “What did they do threaten to take away your NBC affiliation”; “Why are you lowering your standards to What For?”; and “for how long? SNL will say something or show something that will offend the church-owned station and they will cancel it.”
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