Saturday Night Live announces return date following cast shake-up

Saturday Night Live will return for a 48th season on 1 October, NBC has announced.

The long-running comedy sketch show has not yet announced who will host the first episode or be the musical guest.

SNL is typically hosted by a different celebrity each week, with a cast of returning comedians in a host of sketches.

Last season saw an exodus of fan-favourite cast members including Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson and Kyle Mooney.

Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor and Aristotle Athari also departed the show.

Emmys host Kenan Thompson will be returning for the upcoming season alongside stars Heidi Gardner, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, James Austin, Punkie Johnson, Bowen Yang, Michael Che, Colin Jost, Ego Nwodim, Chris Redd, Sarah Sherman and Cecily Strong.

At the Emmy Awards on Monday, two-time winner McKinnon said she’ll now be spending her evenings watching Netflix instead.

“I have a bunch of seasons of Married At First Sight that I have not dug into yet, so that’s mostly my plan for Saturday nights,” McKinnon joked, before adding that she’s: “So proud of everyone who’s taking over” on SNL.

In an earlier interview, she broke her silence about her departure, saying: “All I ever wanted to do in my whole life was to be on Saturday Night Live.

“So, I did, I loved it, I had the best decade, and then I was just like, my body was tired, and I felt like it was time.”

Saturday Night Live will air on NBC and stream on Peacock at 11:30 ET and 20:30 PT on 1 October.