in between election-mocking segments featuring alec baldwin as donald trump and larry david as bernie sanders, nbc offered viewers another reason to smile during the <u+201c>saturday night live<u+201d> season premiere: fewer commercials. advertising time amounted to 12 minutes and 15 seconds during the kickoff episode of the show<u+2019>s 42nd season, down about 28% from last season<u+2019>s average of about 17 minutes, according to ad tracker ispot.tv. during the episode, 23 different marketers<u+2014>including general electric, jack daniel's, acura and degree deodorant<u+2014>aired a total of 31 ads, compared with 40 ads during last season<u+2019>s premiere. the reduction is part of nbc<u+2019>s plan for the 90-minute live comedy show. in the spring, the network announced that it would slash the program<u+2019>s national commercial load by 30% by cutting two commercial breaks. ad time for saturday<u+2019>s premiere was right in line with that target. networks that cut back on ad time risk reducing their revenue unless ratings rise dramatically or ad prices go up. while nbc hasn<u+2019>t commented explicitly on the financial impact of its new strategy, the network said in the spring that the move would improve the live viewing experience and allow the show to air more sponsored content from its advertising partners. <u+201c>as the decades have gone by, commercial time has grown,<u+201d> lorne michaels, creator and executive producer of <u+201c>snl,<u+201d> said in a statement in april. <u+201c>this will give time back to the show and make it easier to watch the show live.<u+201d> the change comes ahead of an important handful of episodes for <u+201c>snl,<u+201d> which has in recent election cycles relied on crowd-pleasing political segments to drive viewership. according to early nielsen ratings estimates provided by nbc, saturday<u+2019>s episode generated the biggest premiere audience since 2008, when tina fey appeared as sarah palin. saturday<u+2019>s episode jumped about 30% from last year<u+2019>s debut, according to the figures. as it cuts back on traditional ad time, nbc said it would ramp up efforts to create <u+201c>branded content<u+201d> with <u+201c>saturday night live<u+201d> advertisers. linda yaccarino, chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships at nbcuniversal, said in an interview with ad age that the <u+201c>native pods<u+201d> would occur six times a year, though none were featured in saturday<u+2019>s premiere. viewers have long complained about too much <u+201c>commercial clutter<u+201d> on television, as cable networks yanked out opening and closing credits from reruns to pack in more ads. some have been caught going even further<u+2014> speeding up actual shows slightly to generate more ad time. in recent years, viewers have voiced their displeasure by watching more programming on their own time, where they can skip over ads on dvrs or avoid them entirely on streaming services like netflix , amazon and hulu. now more networks, such as turner<u+2019>s tnt and trutv, say they are taking on the issue and plan to air fewer ads . corrections & amplifications: turner<u+2019>s tnt and trutv networks are planning to air fewer commercials. an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that turner<u+2019>s tbs was one of the networks limiting commercial time. write to steven perlberg at steven.perlberg@wsj.com
<u+2018>saturday night live<u+2019> premiere airs almost 30% fewer commercials - wsj
steven perlberg