Yahoo gets exclusive rights to 38 years of SNL video

Deal also includes musical performances, behind-the-scenes clips, and dress rehearsal sketches

Live from New York, it's... Yahoo?

Yahoo has inked a deal with Broadway Video Entertainment to bring Saturday Night Live's entire video archive exclusively to Yahoo, it was announced Wednesday. 

Beginning on September 1st of this year, Yahoo will be given access to SNL's entire library of show clips from all of the show's 38 seasons, which ran between 1975 and 2013; select musical performances from the show's history; making-of and behind-the-scenes clips; and a selection of dress rehearsal clips.

Yahoo will get the chance to feature new episodes, but will not have exclusively access to them. Nor will it have exclusive right to distribution outside of the United States.

"Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker, or Tina Fey as Sarah Palin? As a lifelong Saturday Night Live fan, it is nearly impossible for me to pick my favorite skit. And, as a fan, I couldn’t be more excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Broadway Video to feature Saturday Night Live content exclusively on Yahoo," Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wrote in a blogpost.

"Blues Brothers, the Coneheads, Church Chat, Wayne's World, Coffee Talk, Pat, the Hanukkah Song – the list of tremendous clips goes on and on. Saturday Night Live has pervaded and defined our culture for decades."

SNL content is current available on other streaming services, including Hulu, Netflix and NBC's website. The old episodes on Netflix are often truncated, sometimes only consisting of 15 or 30 minutes of an entire show. There is no word on whether this will still be the case when the episodes are run on Yahoo, but my guess is that most of that has to do with some sort of copyright problem, especially when it comes to musical performances. If so, then its an issue that most likey will not be solved when the show moves to Yahoo.

This news makes a lot of sense when put into the context of recent rumors that Yahoo is looking to get into the video-streaming space, specifically by buying a contolling stake in DailyMotion. 

Yahoo was reportedly looking to purchase as much of 75% of the company, which is currently owned by France Telecom SA, and is reportedly  valued at as much as $300 million. If the deal goes through, Yahoo could buy the rest of the company at a later date. 

Dailymotion is the 12th largest video website in the world, garnering 116 million by unique users in January, according to comScore. Dailymotion ranks as the number 22 among video websites by unique viewers in the United States. Obviously, buying the site would give Yahoo a big platform to show off its big television purchase.

So, in the spirit of technology and Saturday Night Live and all that, here is Mark Zuckerberg's extremely awkward SNL cameo from a couple of years ago:

(Image source: https://www.justintimberlakeonsnl.com)