Friday Night Live (2009 TV series)

Friday Night Live (often shortened to FNL) is a British live sketch comedy/variety television show created by Michael Russell, who currently serves as executive producer and showrunner. The shows premiere was on the 6th of February 2009 and was hosted by England Is Falling creator Jack Hunt on MurroTV. The show consists of political satire on the week's news, comedy sketches, songs, stand up, and pre-recorded comedy footage where cast members do a satirical take on normal everyday things. The show is a UK version of America's Saturday Night Live which has aired on NBC since 1975.

Russell has stuck with the show since it's inception in 2009, his close friend Daniel Walker, served as executive producer alongside Russell from 2012 to 2015, when he later would present the show to this day.

History
When it was decided that MurroTV needed some form of Friday Night entertainment alongside the animation block at 11pm. They brought along Michael Russell, who had worked on previous MurroTV comedy shows, he decided on a Saturday Night Live style variety sketch comedy series. The series was commissioned for 15 episodes starting from the 6th of February 2009. The show proved to be a hit for viewers at home. Critics praised the humor on the show and the variety of cast members but criticized its cheap look. A second series was commissioned during the end of the first series which aired nearly 3 months after the first series on the 7th of August 2009.

To improve on the 'cheap' quality the critics were going off about, the channel spent around £2.1 million on set designs for TVC, these 'cheap' comments have gotten less frequent but critics have said the humor has died down from the 'golden years' (2009 - 2012). It has since become a stable in Murro's television history. More recently, the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh series was commissioned for a 2022 release.

For it's seventh series, the show was moved to Murro2 after Murro reaquired rights for the American series South Park and planned to air it in FNL's time slot so it was moved to Murro2 which was launched about a month before the decision. The show has had as much success on Murro2 than it did on MurroTV (which was renamed simply Murro in January 2012).