Goodbye Comedy Central UK

Or more particularly, Comedy Central Extra. But it comes to the same thing.

I noticed a rather dispiriting Tweet earlier today from Hadley Freeman.

That can’t be good.

As a reminder, The Daily Show has been an ever-present in my Sky planner for years now, finding a home for a while on More 4, before re-emerging on Comedy Central UK. If there’s one series you can bank on me recording it’s this one. It’s an ever-present, and I never miss an episode.

Looking through Comedy Central UK’s Twitter feed reveals this very odd announcement from a few days ago, in amongst the endless Friends screengrabs (Did you know they showed Friends? Why, yes, they do!):

I can only think someone might think that Jon Stewart’s gritted teeth made an appropriate image.

Clicking on the link gets you this very oddly worded message on their website (which is desperately trying to be a comedy version of Buzzfeed or something, and seems to consider their TV channels as something of an afterthought):

dailyshow

Judging from the language, I assume somebody asked the work experience kid to put something on Twitter about how the valuable 1am slot on their second channel, where The Daily Show had slowly been relegated into, was needed for repeats of Two and a Half Men.

What on earth does “Moving away from talk shows” mean? As far as I’m aware, they only had The Daily Show. What they probably meant was that it was a bit too much hassle for someone to download the programme each day, comply it, and chuck it into a scheduling system.

The writing was on the wall when the timeslot slipped further and further backwards into the small hours. Although amusingly, that didn’t stop someone amending the “DOG” if someone famous was being interviewed. This implies thinking like this: “I might have been about to go to bed at 1.15am, but I just noticed that Ricky Gervais was tonight’s guest, so I guess I’ll stay up!”

The timing of the cancellation was beautiful, coming a week after lots of high profile interviews with Stewart about his film, Rosewater, which has just been released. And of course, as the above Tweet notes, Stewart’s take on the UK election. Finally, Stewart himself is stepping down in August, which would have been a natural breakpoint. I certainly hope that Trevor Noah hits the ground running, but it’s fair to say that a change in presenter would have at least afforded many viewers a reappraisal.

Still, Comedy Central UK has other “comedy genres” to concentrate on. Unfortunately for them, Friends, Sex and the City, Russell Howard repeats and Two and a Half Men don’t float my boat. Plus I’m really annoyed at this move, so that’s me gone.

In the meantime, Sky Atlantic has moved up John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, from Tuesdays to Mondays, and schedules it within their big Monday evening HBO fare – Games of Thrones, Silicon Valley.

I’d ask who’s going to carry Stephen Colbert’s upcoming show in the UK. But I know for certain that whoever gets it will quickly lose interest in it. I mean nobody is even bothering to show James Corden’s programme, and he’s a pretty big UK star!


Posted

in

Tags: