Saturday Night Live has been on the air for decades, but the late-night sketch comedy show is still changing with the times. For the first time in its 40-year history, SNL will air live across the country, Deadline reports. Audiences will say goodbye to tape delays in mid-April, and the final four episodes of the season will air live at 11:30 p.m. ET/10:30 p.m. CT/9:30 p.m. MT/8:30 p.m. PT.
While this doesn’t mark a time change for those living in eastern time zones, it does push the show earlier for the rest of the country. The benefit is that nationwide viewers will be able to watch together, like one big happy family. Aww.
“That way, everyone is in on the joke at the same time,” said Robert Greenblatt, NBC Entertainment chairman.
To make sure that viewers tune in for the episodes in question, SNL locked down some great hosts, ones that should each be a big draw. SNL alum and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon will kick off the first of the four episodes on April 15, and he’ll be followed by Chris Pine on May 6, Melissa McCarthy on May 13, and then Dwayne Johnson on May 20.
Fallon teased his return in a tweet, saying that he “can’t wait to be back hosting.”
Can't wait to be back hosting @NBCSNL – LIVE across the country for the 1st time! April 15. Love that show. Love that cast. Here we go!
— Jimmy Fallon (@jimmyfallon) March 16, 2017
The hosts will add their contribution to what has been SNL‘s most-watched season in more than two decades. Viewers — well, perhaps with one very notable exception who lives in the White House — have been going wild over the show’s political coverage, which has featured Alec Baldwin as President Donald Trump, Melissa McCarthy as White House press secretary Sean Spicer, and more. The popularity has spurred on not just this broadcast change but also a limited run of Weekend Update episodes set to air in August.
SNL is on a high right now, and going live everywhere may help the show maintain its momentum.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.