'Saturday Night Live' sees head writer shuffle

Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider have stepped down as co-head writers of “Saturday Night Live” after steering the show through its most successful season in more than 20 years.

Kelly and Schneider are exiting to focus on a Comedy Central pilot that they are writing for Broadway Video, the production arm of “Saturday Night Live” boss Lorne Michaels. Taking on full responsibility for the show is Bryan Tucker and Ken Sublette, who were co-head writers with Kelly and Schneider last season (Sublette was promoted half-way through Season 42).

Kelly and Schneider had been with the show since 2011.

On Kelly and Schneider’s watch, “SNL” logged its most-watched season since the 1993-94 season. It also collected 22 Emmy nominations and nine wins in top categories include best variety sketch show and acting nods for Alec Baldwin, Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon.

McKinnon gave a shout-out to Kelly and Schneider as she collected her second consecutive Emmy win for supporting comedy actress last month.”It’s all about the writing, you guys,” she said. “I love you so much.”

In addition to the head writer shuffle, “SNL” has added seven new scribes to its writers room this year: Sam Jay, Gary Richardson, Erik Marino, Andrew Dismukes, Steven Castillo, Claire Friedman, and Nimesh Patel.

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