For the first time in its 42-year history, Saturday Night Live will broadcast live across the United States.



Finishing Season 42 with four great shows! #SNL pic.twitter.com/D87eCaADmS — Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) March 16, 2017

The announcement was made on Twitter , where it was revealed that starting on April 15, SNL's last four episodes for Season 42 will air live in all time zones. Meaning, instead of waiting for the later broadcast of a show filmed earlier that night, SNL will be airing live at 8:30pm for those in the pacific time zone.Earlier this week, NBC touted that SNL has been enjoying its best ratings in 24 years and the show has been getting a lot of buzz this season thanks to Alec Baldwin's frequent appearances as Donald Trump and, recently, Melissa McCarthy popping up as Sean Spicer. McCarthy is one of the hosts announced for Season 42's last four episodes (for the May 13 episode), along with Jimmy Fallon (April 15), Chris Pine (May 6) and Dwayne Johnson (May 20).As result of this recent ratings resurgence, Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update is now getting its own four-episode spinoff show during SNL's annual summer hiatus.

Alex Gilyadov is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter