Live from New York, it’s…Thursday night? According to TVLine, that may just be a possibility, as there’s reports that NBC is prepping the popular segment from Saturday Night Live for a Thursday night segment in addition to the weekly segment on SNL.
If the spinoff does happen, it will be 30 minutes in length and will start airing in the fall.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Weekend Update has aired on a weeknight in primetime. In 2008, in the middle of the presidential campaigns of future president Barack Obama and John McCain, Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers had Thursday night editions of the segment leading up to the election.
The Thursday night edition of Weekend Update happened again in 2009 and briefly in 2012.
Last summer, during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, co-hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost had two broadcasts that aired on MSNBC after the conventions ended.
There’s no official word from NBC on whether the Thursday night edition will be happening, but this is the perfect time for NBC to be considering a Thursday night broadcast of the Weekend Update segment. Saturday’s episode, which featured Kristen Stewart as host and Alessia Cara as the musical guest and surprise guest appearance from Melissa McCarthy as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer scored a 5.0 rating in the metered-market rating and a 2.5 rating in the 18 to 49 demographic, making it the most-watched episode since the first episode after the election where Dave Chappelle hosted, according to TV by the Numbers.
Variety reported that this season of SNL is the best ratings for the show since the 1994 through 1995 season from 22 years ago. Compared to last year, SNL is up 19 percent in terms of ratings (this year is averaging a 3.5 rating versus last year’s 2.9 rating) and is up 22 percent in terms of actual viewers (10.6 million viewers versus last year’s 8.7 million viewers).
The next episode, which airs this Saturday, will be hosted by Alec Baldwin with Ed Sheeran as the musical guest.