Saturday Night Live launches in China

A Chinese video-on-demand (VoD) site has added irreverent US comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL) to its line-up.

The NBC network latenight show, that regularly mocks celebrities, politicians and popular culture, is being shown exclusively on the website of Sohu Video, a unit of Chinese online media group sohu.com.

Ten episodes from the current 39th season of SNL have been made available and future episodes will appear online without subtitles the Monday after airing in the US.

A version with Chinese subtitles and explanations of cultural references will be made available the following Saturday, Sohu said in a statement today.

Sohu Chairman and CEO Charles Zhang said he didn’t expect the show’s edgy themes to get them into trouble in China, which routinely censors its programming for criticism of leaders or socially sensitive content.

“Things that are controversial in America are probably not controversial in China,” he said. “And this talkshow is in the spirit of fun and humour. I don’t think there will be any problem.

He added that the show, if popular in China, could inspire Chinese companies to produce shows with similar formats.

Sohu Video’s site licenses many hit US TV shows alongside Japanese animation series, Chinese variety shows and in-house programs. American programmes that first appeared on Sohu’s line-up included Lost and The Big Bang Theory.