How many seasons of Saturday Night Live are there?

Saturday Night Live has aired 51 seasons so far.

How many episodes of Saturday Night Live are there?

There are 1009 episodes of Saturday Night Live across 51 seasons.

Who created Saturday Night Live?

Saturday Night Live was created by Dick Ebersol and Lorne Michaels.

Where can I watch Saturday Night Live?

Saturday Night Live is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock Premium, YouTube TV, NBC, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus, Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies and Fandango At Home.

What is Saturday Night Live's IMDb rating?

Saturday Night Live holds an IMDb rating of 8/10 from 57,233 votes.

Comedy

When Does Saturday Night Live Season 52 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

“Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!”

Saturday Night Live Season 52 doesn't have an official release date yet. Based on the roughly 12-month gap between previous seasons, expect it around October 2026.

IMDb

8.0/10

Seasons

Episodes

1009

Diagnostics

Network: NBC
Genres: Comedy, News
First aired: 1975-10-11
Last aired: 2026-05-16
Runtime: —
Rated: TV-14

Awards Won 98 Primetime Emmys. 244 wins & 647 nominations total

Search interestSteady →

Predictive Logic Analysis

SNL is not a show NBC cancels in the conventional sense. It is the network's longest-running program and a cultural institution, and it has survived cast overhauls, declining ratings, and shifting tastes repeatedly over five decades. The absence of a formal Season 52 pickup announcement is not alarming given where the show is in its calendar. Season 51 wrapped in May 2026, and NBC typically confirms the next season well before the fall premiere rather than announcing it immediately after a finale.

The real renewal risk here is structural rather than episodic. The most credible negative signal is the August 2025 report (from a Syracuse University television scholar) suggesting the show could be axed when Lorne Michaels eventually steps down, given that it currently loses money for the network. That is a genuine long-term threat, not an imminent one. Michaels has not announced retirement, and NBC has historically kept the show alive through transitions. Season 51's IMDb average of 4.2 is strikingly low compared to the prior season's 7.6, though episode-rating trajectories on IMDb for live sketch shows tend to skew toward political over-scoring and do not reliably mirror broadcast performance. The season did see a large cast influx, the biggest since 2013, which carries transitional risk but also signals NBC's investment in the show's future rather than a wind-down posture. A Variety piece from May 2026 profiling the new cast members and their Season 52 goals is the closest thing to a forward-looking signal here, and it reads like a show planning to continue, not one waiting for the axe.

What is Saturday Night Live about?

Saturday Night Live has been on the air since 1975, which means it has outlasted most of the careers it launched, most of the political figures it skewered, and most of the television formats it helped define. Fifty-one seasons is an almost incomprehensible run for a live sketch comedy show, and the question the show has faced for roughly forty of those years is whether it still deserves to exist. The honest answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes no, often both in the same episode.

The format is the same as it has always been: a celebrity host, a musical guest, cold open, monologue, sketches, Weekend Update, more sketches, goodnight. That rigidity is both the show's anchor and its limitation. When the host is genuinely funny and the writing room is firing, SNL can still produce something that feels like a shared cultural event. When neither of those things is true, you are watching a very expensive, very long live production of material that might have been cut from a college improv showcase. The current cast has real talent, particularly Kenan Thompson, who has been there long enough to be practically a piece of infrastructure, and Chloe Fineman, whose impressions are precise and strange in equal measure.

Critics have spent decades declaring SNL finished, and audiences have spent decades tuning in anyway. Its IMDb score of 8 out of 10 reflects nostalgia as much as quality, but that nostalgia is not nothing. The show genuinely matters to people who grew up watching it, and its political cold opens still generate the kind of immediate social media response that most television can only dream about, even when the sketches themselves are more dutiful than funny.

What separates SNL from other sketch comedy is less its quality than its liveness, its continuity, and its role as a farm system for American comedy. The cast members you are watching now will, statistically, become the comedians and actors you watch for the next thirty years. That is actually a reason to pay attention.

Created by Dick Ebersol, Lorne Michaels

Themes

talk showlivesketch comedyskitlate-night showlive studio audience

Is Saturday Night Live renewed or cancelled?

Working toward renewal

high

51-season institutional history on NBC; show has never been cancelled

medium

Variety's May 2026 profile of new cast members discussing Season 52 goals implies forward planning

Source

medium

Largest single-season cast addition since 2013 signals NBC investment in the show's continuity

Source

low

Strong Trakt active watcher count (40,024) with steady momentum

low

244 total wins including 98 Primetime Emmys — awards legacy supports institutional value to NBC

Working against it

high

Expert prediction that NBC could axe SNL when Lorne Michaels steps down, citing financial losses

Source

medium

Season 51 IMDb average of 4.2 vs 7.6 the prior season — a sharp drop, though live sketch comedy IMDb scores are noisy

medium

No formal Season 52 renewal announcement on record

low

Steady Google search interest; falling Wikipedia pageview trend

Saturday Night Live Season 52 Release Date

If renewed, Season 52 would almost certainly premiere in early-to-mid October 2026, consistent with SNL's standard fall schedule. The show has opened every season in late September or October for decades, and there is no signal of any structural change to that pattern.

The only scenario that delays or derails a Season 52 premiere is a Lorne Michaels departure announcement or a sudden shift in NBC's programming strategy. Neither appears imminent. Barring that, expect a September or October 2026 announcement of the season premiere date, with the show back on air by mid-October at the latest.