Saturday Night Live is without doubt one of the most iconic items of programming in TV historical past, and it’s at present in its fiftieth season. To have a good time that achievement, NBC and showrunners, together with Lorne Michaels, deliberate, produced, and executed effectively – all dwell – the SNL fiftieth Anniversary Special, which aired a number of weeks again on February 16, 2025.
Rather than firing up a traditional TV antenna or choosing my Hulu dwell TV subscription, I made a decision to open up Peacock, utilizing an Apple TV 4K – among the finest streaming gadgets – to finally watch the anniversary particular. It’s not the primary time I’ve turned to the NBC-owned streaming service to observe a dwell occasion, that honor goes to the Summer 2024 Paris Olympics, wherein I additionally used the multiview performance to observe a number of competitions without delay.
This time round, I used to be greeted with an SNL 50 overlay and will bounce proper into the dwell broadcast of the present with a single click on. For these questioning, I hopped in about halfway by means of the opening with Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter on among the finest streaming providers.
The stream started with no hitch and regarded fairly sharp if I do say so myself. I additionally didn’t encounter stutters or a stoppage within the stream, and I didn’t even see commercials both – reasonably, I used to be introduced with a textual content alongside the strains of “the SNL fiftieth Anniversary would resume quickly” with the theme music taking part in on a loop and numerous glam shoots of the acclaimed 8H studio the place the present tapes.
It was a pleasant expertise for a live-stream occasion, a straightforward strategy to watch the fiftieth particular with out the necessity for a linear TV expertise, and it went off just about with no hitch. Something that the linear broadcast for some didn’t because the particular ran over. Even so, 14.8 million viewers throughout Peacock and NBC (linear TV) watched the particular both dwell or inside the identical day. That makes it NBC’s most primetime occasion within the final 5 years, besting the Golden Globes.
Peacock has a form of particular sauce within the streaming service sector – sure, it’s a brand new providing since its premiere in 2020, however it’s backed by NBC, which has been within the enterprise of dwell TV and occasions rolling in actual time for years. The streaming service additionally is aware of learn how to curate its backlog of content material with different components and dwell occasions. We noticed again with the Paris Olympics the flexibility to observe every particular person class, a number of of them collectively in multiview, and a trove of recent content material, together with Snoop Dog on the video games and a present hosted by Alex Cooper.
The SNL 50 takeover was an analogous feat, which had a aim of letting followers attain the content material they wished – be it all of the episodes from the fiftieth season or earlier ones, specially-released documentaries, and even the SNL 50 Homecoming Concert, which additionally streamed dwell on Peacock. We’ll additionally see an analogous takeover come March 21, 2025, when Wicked hits Peacock and begins streaming for all subscribers of the service.
Building a platform that helps the best ranges of efficiency
Speaking to TechRadar, Patrick Miceli, CTO of world streaming and the NBCU Media Group, mentioned that since Peacock’s inception, “we’ve invested in constructing a platform and technical infrastructure that helps the best ranges of efficiency, safety, and reliability to ship a seamless and incomparable expertise for our prospects.”
Miceli additional famous that even with the complexities of live-streaming, Peacock has “achieved a 100% success charge in video high quality and reliability on our NFL and Olympics protection final yr”. This comes as different providers, together with Netflix with the Logan Paul vs Mike Tyson battle, have struggled to maintain streams afloat with heavy viewers demand.
Suffice to say, Peacock and NBC at massive felt assured going into the weekend with the Olympics, NFL video games, and different occasions, together with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade within the historical past books. Still, Miceli shared, “we do nonetheless spend a number of time making ready for every occasion, accounting for quite a lot of completely different situations to make sure we’re prepared for something”.
I used to be impressed with Peacock’s efficiency, and numerous others shared that the stream was a high performer on social media utilizing the hashtag #SNL50. Given the efficiency right here, I’m eager to see what sort of bundle Peacock curates for future specials, dwell occasions like the subsequent Olympics, and NBA video games, which can hit the streaming service in 2025.
Of course, regardless that it’s not dwell, I’ll nonetheless head to Peacock each time I want my Bravo repair like Summer House, reruns of Vanderpump Rules, or a rewatch of a timeless traditional with SNL alums Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation).
