“Saturday Night Live” is coming to Britain.
A British version of NBC’s late-night comedy sketch show is set to premiere next year on Sky, the broadcaster announced on Thursday. The new edition of the program will have Lorne Michaels, the show’s creator, as executive producer and will feature “a star-studded lineup of hosts.”
The familiar catchphrase used to kick off the weekly show will be slightly modified: “Live from London, it’s Saturday night!”
Sky said the show would follow a similar format to the American version, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary. It will star a yet-to-be-announced cast of British comedians who will perform sketches, alongside rotating hosts and featured musical acts.
The remake comes after years of speculation that a British version of the comedy show was in the works.
Given the current media landscape, the announcement is not a big surprise, said Helen Wheatley, a professor of film and television at the University of Warwick in England. “In a fairly brutal media environment, people are looking for trusted formats that they know work,” she said.
“Saturday Night Live” has already been replicated around the world in countries including Italy, China, Japan and Egypt — and has been met with a mixed reception. The format flourished in Germany in the 1990s and South Korea in the 2010s, but flopped in Spain, Brazil and Finland, where the shows only ran for one season.
Britain had a similar sketch show in the late 1980s that, while unaffiliated with “S.N.L.,” was titled “Saturday Live.” It ran for three seasons and was revived in 1996 for short run. The show made stars out of some of its performers, including Harry Enfield, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
Sky executives have said they are interested in creating more original programming, as the broadcaster’s exclusive deal to air programming from HBO in Britain expires next year.
And a new “Saturday Night Live” adaptation in Britain makes sense, Ms. Wheatley said, because the media cultures of the United States and the United Kingdom have grown increasingly meshed. “Television is endlessly cannibalistic,” she said. “It constantly recycles itself.”
British imports to the United States — “The Office,” “Love Island” and “Strictly Come Dancing” (known stateside as “Dancing With the Stars”) — have found huge success, while Britain has adapted American series including “Law & Order,” “Jeopardy!” and “Jersey Shore” (though across the pond it was rebranded as “Geordie Shore”).
The internet and streaming services have further unified the media diets of the two countries, Ms. Wheatley said. “Although I haven’t sat down as a television viewer and watched a lot of ‘Saturday Night Live’ from the U.S., I see it all the time because I see it on my social media feed.”
Britain has a storied history of sketch comedy. Monty Python and Morecambe and Wise found widespread success on television and film. In the 1990s and 2000s, catchphrases from “Little Britain,” “Harry Enfield’s Television Programme” and “The Catherine Tate Show” circulated throughout the country’s offices and playgrounds.
The format fell out of favor as people turned to the internet for quick hits of comedy, said Mark Boosey, an editor of British Comedy Guide.
When it comes to casting, “Saturday Night Live” producers will find plenty of talent in London’s comedy scene, which is “booming,” Mr. Boosey said. In the past, improv has not been as popular in Britain as in the United States, he said. But that’s changing.
Improv classes London at the Free Association and Hoopla have become popular in recent years, he said, while groups such as Shoot From the Hip and Austentatious — a group that improvises in the style of Jane Austen novels — have amassed millions of followers.
A big question, however, is whether the “night” part of “Saturday Night Live” can work in Britain, Mr. Boosey said.
“In this country, we haven’t got a history of making late night television work,” he said. Aside from occasional successes (for example, “The Graham Norton Show”), late-night comedy and talk shows have not generally done well.
“That’s not to say that ‘Saturday Night Live’ won’t work,” he added. “Perhaps we need a format like ‘Saturday Night Live’ that is established and knows what it’s doing to make it work.”