{"id":45133,"date":"2026-05-17T09:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T09:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/45133\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T09:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T09:45:09","slug":"snl-uk-bows-out-with-series-low-ratings-against-eurovision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/45133\/","title":{"rendered":"‘SNL UK’ Bows Out With Series Low Ratings Against Eurovision"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSNL UK<\/a>\u2018s first season came to a close on a bum note, ratings-wise.<\/p>\n

\n\tUp against stiff competition from the Eurovision Song Contest on BBC One, Sky\u2019s adaptation of the iconic NBC comedy drew its lowest audience of the series.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Sex Education\u2018s Ncuti Gatwa guest presenting, Saturday Night Live UK<\/a> was watched by 86,420 viewers at 10PM, which was around 28% down on its previous low of 120,000 viewers for the Jack Whitehall-fronted episode.<\/p>\n

\n\tGatwa\u2019s rating was less than half that of\u00a0the 197,200 audience Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham achieved last week<\/a>. Check out the full breakdown below.<\/p>\n

\u2018SNL UK\u2019 EpisodeOvernight Rating1 (Tina Fey)226,0002 (Jamie Dornan)205,0003 (Riz Ahmed)130,1004 (Jack Whitehall)120,0005 (Nicola Coughlan)129,970 6 (Aimee Lou Wood)143,7307 (Hannah Waddingham)197,2008 (Ncuti Gatwa)86,420Source: overnights.tv<\/p>\n

\n\tOver on the BBC, the Eurovision Song Contest was watched by an average of 5.2M viewers, with a peak of 5.9M, according to live BARB figures supplied by overnights.tv.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe singing competition, which crowned Bulgaria\u2019s Dara as the winner <\/a>with her song \u201cBangaranga,\u201d comfortably beat all rivals, but its audience was well down on last year\u2019s 6.7M average.<\/p>\n

\n\tSNL UK\u2018s measure of success has always been about much more than overnight ratings. The show\u2019s audience has generally tripled once catchup, streaming, and repeat viewing are captured. Sketches have also repeatedly gone viral, meaning the show is breaking through online.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe overall performance has been\u00a0enough to convince Sky to renew\u00a0SNL UK<\/a>\u00a0for a second season. The show will return in September.<\/p>\n

\n\tSNL knew it would be up against tough competition on Saturday, with the show\u2019s cold open depicting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s Eurovision viewing party being gatecrashed <\/a>by Labour leadership hopefuls. In the same show, Louis Theroux made a cameo<\/a>, and Gatwa poked fun at his time as Doctor Who.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SNL UK\u2018s first season came to a close on a bum note, ratings-wise. Up against stiff competition from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20858],"tags":[20859,28192,20860,28137,28244],"class_list":{"0":"post-45133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eurovision","8":"tag-eurovision","9":"tag-eurovision-song-conteset","10":"tag-eurovision-song-contest-2026","11":"tag-saturday-night-live-uk","12":"tag-snl-uk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}