Having just celebrated its fortieth birthday, Saturday Night Live, the longest-running sketch comedy show on American television, is set to be taken overseas to China after one of the country’s largest portal sites Sohu striking a deal with SNL creator Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video Entertainment.
While the site already streams the US version to viewers in China, Sohu says it has begun recruiting comedians across the country, ensuring the show “will have international appeal” while still being tailored for Chinese audiences, according to a report by Variety.
Sohu’s move can be seen as an attempt to generate more original content to court China’s 600 million (and growing) Internet users, competing with the nation’s other largest streaming websites including Youku Tudou, partly owned by Alibaba and iQiyi, which is controlled by Baidu.
However, this deal has also prompted people to wonder whether the Chinese version would push the envelope in terms of political satire, which is a staple in the US original version. Chinese state censor, however, headed by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, is notorious for routinely expurgating films and TV shows to prevent criticism of leaders and socially sensitive content including sexually suggestive humor, while SNL often tests those boundaries.
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Although the Chinese version won’t debut until later this year or early 2016, SNL did a cold open in 2009 featuring Will Forte as then Chinese President Hu Jintao grilling US President Obama (impersonated by Fred Armisen) about the USD800 billion they’re owed and why America is trying to “do sex” with them.
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Sohu, which had drawn more than 120 million views a month by streaming The Big Bang Theory, was hit hard last year by the state censor’s tightening grip on streaming foreign television programs online.
Producers have yet to decide whether the show will be taped or streamed live, and whether it will be 90 minutes like the American version or shorter, but one thing we’re pretty sure about is that Chinese viewers won’t be able see a sketch where Xi Dada literally hunts tigers or a digital short about private parts in a box any time soon.
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[images via NBC]
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