What to Watch Saturday, September 26: ‘SNL’ Returns, Farm Aid 2026 and New Saturday Movies

Saturday is handing most of daytime television over to college football, but primetime has a little something for everybody. Saturday Night Live finally returns for Season 52 with Jalen Brunson making his hosting debut, Farm Aid takes over CNN for four live hours, and No. 20 Oregon heads to No. 12 USC for one of the day's biggest college-football matchups. NBC confirms SNL premieres tonight at 11:30 PM ET, while Farm Aid's official site and CNN have the festival beginning online much earlier before CNN joins the action at 7 PM.

There are some solid counterprogramming options too. Hallmark premieres Pumpkin Regatta Romance with The Young and the Restless alum Mishael Morgan, Lifetime has Sarah Wayne Callies and Joy Bryant in Sole Survivor of Flight 119, and the college-football schedule is frankly ridiculous: Texas-Tennessee, Iowa-Michigan, Georgia-Oklahoma, Texas A&M-LSU and Oregon-USC all land on the same Saturday. Apparently the remote control has been selected for active duty.

TV Cave Top Pick: Saturday Night Live Returns

Saturday Night Live Season 52 premieres tonight at 11:30 PM ET on NBC, with New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson hosting and KATSEYE serving as musical guest. Peacock will also carry the episode live before making it available on demand.

Brunson gets the assignment after leading the Knicks to an NBA championship and earning Finals MVP honors, which means New York has somehow found another stage on which to celebrate him. KATSEYE is also making its SNL debut, while the cast enters the new season with some changes of its own, including newcomers Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter. Sports stars hosting SNL can either be unexpectedly great or gloriously awkward, and frankly, both outcomes make for good television.

Saturday, September 26 TV Schedule

Time (ET)	Show	Network/Streaming	Tonight
11:30 AM	Farm Aid 2026	FarmAid.org / YouTube	Full festival livestream begins
12:00 PM	No. 1 Texas at No. 14 Tennessee	ABC	Top-15 college-football showdown
12:00 PM	Illinois at No. 7 Ohio State	FOX	Big Ten matchup
12:00 PM	Wake Forest at No. 16 Louisville	ESPN	Ranked ACC matchup
1:30 PM	UCLA at Maryland	Big Ten Network	Big Ten matchup
2:00 PM	No. 3 Notre Dame at Purdue	Peacock	College football
3:30 PM	No. 17 Iowa at No. 18 Michigan	CBS	Ranked Big Ten matchup
3:30 PM	Oklahoma at No. 2 Georgia	ESPN	Ranked SEC matchup
3:30 PM	No. 4 Ole Miss at No. 21 Florida	ABC	Ranked SEC matchup
3:30 PM	No. 15 Utah at Iowa State	FOX	Big 12 matchup
5:00 PM	Wisconsin at No. 13 Penn State	Peacock	Big Ten matchup
6:30 PM	Central Michigan at No. 6 Miami	The CW	College football
7:00 PM	Farm Aid 2026: Music Festival Live	CNN	Four-hour live special
7:00 PM	South Carolina at No. 8 Alabama	ESPN	SEC matchup
7:30 PM	No. 23 Texas A&M at No. 10 LSU	ABC	Ranked SEC matchup
7:30 PM	No. 20 Oregon at No. 12 USC	NBC	Ranked Big Ten showdown
8:00 PM	Pumpkin Regatta Romance	Hallmark Channel	Original movie premiere
8:00 PM	Sole Survivor of Flight 119	Lifetime	Original movie premiere
11:00 PM	Minnesota at Washington	FOX	Late-night Big Ten matchup
11:30 PM	Saturday Night Live	NBC / Peacock	Season 52 premiere

Farm Aid Takes Over CNN

Farm Aid 2026 is streaming its complete festival beginning at 11:30 AM ET, while CNN joins the event from 7 to 11 PM ET for Farm Aid 2026: Music Festival Live. This year's event comes from Virginia Beach and features Willie Nelson and Family, Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews with Tim Reynolds, Margo Price and Nathaniel Rateliff among the performers.

The annual benefit has been supporting family farmers since 1985, so this is considerably more than another televised music festival. Still, four hours of Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Mellencamp and Dave Matthews in primetime is a pretty easy Saturday-night sell even before getting into the cause behind it. CNN anchors John Berman and Laura Coates will handle the network's live coverage from the festival.

Oregon and USC Get the Primetime Spotlight

College football owns most of Saturday, but No. 20 Oregon at No. 12 USC gets one of the best windows of the day at 7:30 PM ET on NBC. It also arrives during a particularly crowded primetime stretch, with Texas A&M-LSU kicking off simultaneously on ABC and South Carolina-Alabama beginning at 7 PM on ESPN. F

And that's after a daytime slate featuring No. 1 Texas at Tennessee, Iowa-Michigan and Oklahoma-Georgia. If you planned on casually checking one score today, congratulations on the optimism. By dinner, there will probably be three games open, one streaming on a phone and somebody yelling about a fourth.

Hallmark Gets Into the Pumpkin Business

If football isn't happening in your house, Pumpkin Regatta Romance premieres at 8 PM ET on Hallmark Channel, starring Mishael Morgan and Corey Sevier. Their characters, Nadine and Ethan, team up to repair a long-running feud between their fathers while attempting to revive their town's pumpkin regatta. Hallmark confirms the movie will also begin streaming Sunday on Hallmark+.

And yes, a pumpkin regatta involves people hollowing out enormous pumpkins and turning them into boats, so Hallmark may have finally found the one autumn activity it hadn't already turned into a romance. Between that, Lifetime's Sole Survivor of Flight 119, Farm Aid and SNL, Saturday has enough alternatives that nobody is required to spend 12 consecutive hours watching football, although judging by today's schedule, the networks would certainly support that decision.