How Safe Is SNL's Audience?

Over the weekend Saturday Night Live returned with a live studio audience. “We need the audience,” creator Lorne Michaels said in a preseason interview with Vulture. “With comedy, when you don’t hear the response, it’s just different.” He said SNL was working with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office to ensure its audience and employees would be as safe as possible. In a curious twist, the Cuomo Administration suggested a week before the premiere that it wasn’t satisfied with the show’s safety protocols. A Health Department spokesperson told USA Today that SNL wasn’t complying with the state’s guidance on media production, which prohibits shows from hosting live audiences unless they consist entirely of people employed by the show:

Responsible Parties must prohibit live audiences unless they consist only of paid employees, cast, and crew. Employees, cast and crew may make up a live audience of no more than 100 individuals, or 25% the audience capacity, whichever is lower. Live audiences must maintain social distance of at least six feet in all directions.

As the New York Times reported yesterday, SNL dealt with the Health Department’s concern by paying audience members $150 apiece. This seems to be enough for the authorities, which told the Times that SNL “confirmed to them that it had followed the state’s reopening guidance by selecting audience members through a third-party screening and casting process and by compensating them for their time.” Jonah Bruno, a spokesperson for the Health Department, added: “There is no evidence of non-compliance—but if any is discovered, we will refer that to local authorities for follow up.”

But what about the other part of that rule? “Live audiences must maintain social distance of at least six feet in all directions.” Glimpses of the audience throughout Saturday’s episode showed that this clearly was not the case in Studio 8H:

As you can see, these audience members are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, not six feet apart. Some are sitting very close to SNL’s performers, who took off their masks before going onstage (or into the audience). How can this be safe? Does it even meet the state’s distancing requirement? The answers—whether you find them compelling or not—lie in SNL’s broader approach to audience safety.