This is a true story. When I was younger, I watched a lot of Saturday Night Live. I loved it then. I still do, but I just don’t have the time or the energy to stay up and watch it. Often, I would find myself watching what I thought was a commercial on the local TV station. Only to find out that it was in fact, a fake and humorous SNL commercial. Some might say that I was not paying attention… or even dumb. I personally don’t like to use that word, and simply think that the commercials themselves were super convincing.
Call me what you will, but Saturday Night Live is going to partner with Apple and Verizon to come up with some funny commercials. So maybe they were onto something all along? But, you’re still going to be confused because they will air during SNL – specifically on April 8 and 15. As opposed to airing them at random times throughout the day.
Why is this happening? Lorne Michaels thinks that this will boost the show’s ratings. Making people tune in during the show so they can see these commercials. Rather than catching up on the show the next day, online. Will this make a difference? My initial thought is – probably not. Call me cynical, but I suspect someone is going to take a video of the commercials and put them online. Maybe that’s shady, but it seems to happen all the time. The video quality won’t necessarily be the same, but you’re going to be able to see it, regardless. Do I agree with this? Not necessarily, but it isn’t going to make me tune in.
At least, I don’t think it will. As I mentioned, I’m a big fan of the show. But I just haven’t had the time to watch it. With life, and some other shows taking priority, SNL gets put on the back burner until something gives. I am actually excited to see these commercials. Interested to know if they will take a similar format to the fake commercials that they’ve been creating for years. But no, this isn’t going to make me tune into watch it.
A few years ago, SNL seemed to hit a slump. I still loved the show and was pulling for it, but the skits just weren’t there. The comedians were great, but no one was laughing. I suspect they had some pretty bad ratings then. So why is Lorne Michael’s doing this now? I heard that the show has been really funny since last fall during the Presidential election. My guess is that it’s similar to what I’ve been writing about for a few days now. The TV networks just aren’t able to sustain the viewership that it once did. We are mostly watching TV online, and it doesn’t seem like the market (maybe that’s not the right word) hasn’t changed to cope with that.
I can’t see networks sustaining TV shows like they traditionally have in the past. More original series – like Netflix – seem to be the way people are going. Networks just need to be able to keep up. Unfortunately, I think it’s going to cause some issues in some of the really good shows that are on the networks. And yes, you can still access those shows online, but it will be interesting to see how these kinds of “incentives” change the ratings. Or if they even will.