NBC To Cut SNL Spotload 30 Percent

Next season there will be fewer ads on “Saturday Night Live.” Not only that, but the commercials that do appear will feature better storytelling and content integration between the show and its sponsors, according to NBC, which announced the changes Monday morning.

According to MediaLife magazine, starting this fall, the show will eliminate two commercial pods in the 90-minute telecast, or about 30 percent of its ad load.

Buyers anticipate prices may be raised on the remaining ads, but they like the idea of better ads that viewers won’t ignore.

Further, they see this as a possible model for broadcast in the future, at a time when the networks are desperate to convince media buyers of their continued relevance against a backdrop of declining TV ad sales, with digital wooing more and more advertisers.

Having fewer commercials isn’t a new idea.

Clear Channel famously experimented with the idea of Less Is More a decade ago, and more recently Viacom and Turner Networks pledged to do the same on cable.

Broadcast, where Nielsen says the average hour-long commercial load shot up by 50 seconds per hour from 2009 to 2014, has been slow to follow. That’s in part because there was never much need. Up till recently, broadcast was the only option for advertisers wanting to reach a mass audience.

But over the past few years, advertisers have been moving some money from TV to digital. While there’s a question of whether that’s a viable long-term strategy—online ad fraud is a big concern—buyers clearly have gained some negotiating power.

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