NBC’s attitude towards YouTube has done a 180 since the video sharing site was acquired by Google. While earlier in the year, NBC was asking YouTube to take down popular SNL videos like Lazy Sunday, the network now has realized YouTube’s viral potential to expand audiences.

The network has released an uncensored version of an SNL skit starring Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, “A Special Christmas Box”. The video has been viewed close to three million times since its (censored) broadcast last Sunday:

According to the New York Times, “Saturday Night Live appears to have become the first scripted comedy on a broadcast network to use the Web to make an end-run around the prying eyes of both its internal censors and those of the Federal Communications Commission, whose jurisdiction over Saturday Night Live effectively ends at the Web frontier.”

Earlier in the year, CBS announced that it had found that YouTube was a great way to promote its shows.