Jon Stewart's The Daily Show got a raw deal from Mediaworks which stuck the show on at 10.30pm on the low rating C4.
It's an intelligent and literate show that is classified as political satire but is often straight political comment combined with some great interviews.
It's a show that doesn't insult the intelligence of the viewer so it came as no surprise when C4 axed the show. Of course Mediaworks has also threatened to axe John Campbell's seven o'clock show on TV3.
Campbell's show though would be less keenly missed than The Daily Show as Campbell Live has unfortunately turned into yet another soft magazine show for the upwardly mobile middle class. This is kind of ironic since they aren't watching the show anyway and Campbell is now regularly beaten in the ratings by its own late night news show.
It's a pity that Mediaworks didn't extend its support to the The Daily Show in the same way that it continues to support the truly awful Sunrise. TV3's venture into breakfast television has been less than successful. Just 30,000 people thought watching Carly and Oliver talk drivel was a good idea in October- and that dropped to an embarassing 22,000 in November.
Anyway, here's hoping that Jon Stewart will pop up soon on Comedy Central although this will be of cold comfort to Daily Show fans who don't have Sky.
Here's a little bit of Stewart jousting with the right wing Bill O'Reilly - it screened on Fox TV last week. Best television of the week..
Share your sentiments about Campbell Live, I like Campbell as a journalist- as far as I'm aware he was the only person in the mainstream media to say openly that Labour and National were essentially the same (using Coke and Pepsi as an analogy) but the show had become awful, I remember watching the whole episode dedicated to the worlds first Starbucks strike in 2005, last year there was a story about a woman who'd lost of lot of weight, one about a dolphin, that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the best current affairs show at the moment is Maori TV's 'Native Affairs'