Lorne Michaels Assures SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Isn't Going Anywhere Anytime Soon

At today's Hollywood Radio and Television Society's newsmaker luncheon series, long-time Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels assured the long-running late-night comedy show isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And if Michaels has it his way, neither will he.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michaels said, "I'll do it as long as I possible can...I think that there will be a day when I'll look at it and say I don't have the edge I used to."

His comments come just a month after former SNL writer Tina Fey said she thinks the show should wrap when Michaels departs. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Fey said, "He is the center of the show...when he wants to stop, it should just stop."

Michaels, however, disagrees.

"As long as it's relevant, it should be on," he said of the show, which began its 38th season last fall.

For wide-ranging topics Michael discussed, head on over to The Hollywood Reporter.

Since its inception in 1975, "SNL" has launched the careers of many of the brightest comedy performers of their generation; and, as The New York Times noted on the occasion of the show's Emmy-winning 25th Anniversary special in 1999: "In Defiance of both time and show business convention, 'SNL' is still the most pervasive influence on the art of comedy in contemporary culture." At the close of the century, "Saturday Night Live" placed seventh on Entertainment Weekly's list of the Top 100 Entertainers of the past fifty years.

The program has won 36 Emmy Awards and now holds the title for the most nominated television show in Emmy history with 156 nominations. "SNL" has been honored twice, in 1990 and 2009, with the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award and cited as "truly a national institution." "Saturday Night Live" was inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame by the National Association of Broadcasters, and the show continues to garner the highest ratings of any late-night television program, entertaining millions each week.

"Saturday Night Live," which premiered Oct. 11, 1975, is broadcast live from NBC's famed Studio 8H in New York City's Rockefeller Center. The program is a production of Broadway Video in association with SNL Studios. Lorne Michaels is the executive producer.

Photo by: RD/Leon/Retna Digital