SNL U.K. Ratings Plunge 42% to 130,950 in Third Episode
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- SNL U.K. Episode 3, hosted by Riz Ahmed with musical guest Kasabian, drew 130,950 viewers and a 1.8% audience share, a 42% fall from the Tina Fey-hosted premiere (226,000) and a 36% slide from Episode 2 with Jamie Dornan (205,000)
- Free-to-air competitors in the same 10pm slot dwarfed SNL U.K.: BBC 1 news pulled over 3 million viewers, ITV's Jonathan Ross Show nearly 1 million, BBC 2's Top of the Pops 1989 drew 444,000, and Channel 4's Bill Bailey special drew 342,000
- SNL U.K. was nonetheless the best-performing program on Sky 1 that night, beating Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom's lead-in audience of 71,660 on the pay-TV platform
- Ahmed's opening monologue, featuring self-deprecating jokes about British attitudes, had drawn 41,000 YouTube views 17 hours after posting, while the Starmer cold open had pulled 227,000 views in the same window
- Jack Whitehall is slated to host Episode 4 with Jorja Smith as the musical guest
Why it matters: A 42% ratings collapse across just three episodes signals a steep audience erosion for Sky's flagship live comedy bet, with free-to-air rivals drawing between 2.5x and 23x its audience. The silver lining is structural: SNL U.K. dominated its own pay-TV channel, meaning the challenge is competing for casual viewers who don't pay for Sky rather than retaining the subscriber base it already has.
