The first-ever edition of “Saturday Night Live U.K.,” which aired from 10 p.m. on pay TV channel Sky One, drew a solid 226,000 viewers.
The show, which starred Tina Fey, and also featured Graham Norton, and was overseen by executive producer Lorne Michaels, had a 3.2% share of the TV audience at the time, according to official BARB figures supplied by overnights.tv.
It beat Channel 4 in the same slot, which had screened “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” with 215,000 viewing. The “SNL U.K.” performance was almost four times that achieved by “A League of Their Own,” Sky’s biggest entertainment show, and surpassed the U.S. version of “SNL” on Sky Comedy channel, which took 5,000 last week.
The news on BBC One led the 10 p.m. time period with almost 2 million viewers and a 25% share.
Critical reaction to “SNL U.K.” was tentatively positive. The Independent’s Nick Hilton gave it three stars out of five, commenting it had “some hits, some misses, and a bang-on Princess Di impression.”
More to follow.
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