From Multichannel.com, a few more details on what’s coming for Comedy Central in the next few weeks:
Comedy Central To Do Themed Stunts of Daily Show, Colbert
Move Aimed at Bolstering Ratings For Reruns During Writers Strike
By Linda Moss — Multichannel News, 11/9/2007 11:58:00 AMIn order to bolster its late-night ratings during the strike, Comedy Central will so some stunting of its reruns of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, officials said Friday.
In order to keep viewership from flagging, Comedy Central will start running themed weeks of reruns of both shows. For example, next week the network will have “Hard Hitters Week,” airing reruns of both shows with the best head-to-head interviews.
Guests on those reruns include Sen. John McCain, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Penn and Chris Matthews.
For the week of Nov. 19, Comedy Central has scheduled “Singing with Stephen Week,” with Colbert Report installments featuring musical guests such as Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Tony Bennett.
And the week of Nov. 26 will be “Hotties in the Hot Seat” of both The Daily Show and Colbert, with guests like Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Sienna Miller and Paulina Porizkova.
The first three days of the strike this week, Monday through Wednesday, The Daily Show averaged a 0.8 household rating and a 0.7 18-to-49 rating, with The Colbert Report averaging a 0.6 for both household and 18-to-49 ratings.
The prior week, when both shows were in new episodes, the ratings were in the area of 1.2 household and 0.9 18-to-49 for The Daily Show, and 1.0 household and 0.8 18-to-49 for The Colbert Report.
Both shows typically see roughly a 30% decline in ratings when they are in reruns, drops that Comedy Central wants to stem with its themed stunt weeks.
Also, I just saw this (ominous) announcement over at Deadline Hollywood Daily:
Tonight Show Returns Nov. 19th With Guests Hosts; Leno’s Nonwriting Staff Laid Off Next Week
NBC informed the nonwriting staff of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that they will be laid off at the end of next week in the wake of the show shutting down for the writers’ strike. Leno is still refusing to cross the picket line, but the network is talking about bringing the show back on the air Nov. 19 with a bunch of guest hosts.
Yeah, I’m sure they’ll have their pick of D-list celebrities to host The Tonight Show. Seriously, who would be willing to p*ss on Leno and half the industry like that?
Also: firing the crew, but then bringing the show back the next week? How does that work? Maybe they plan to replace the crew just out of spite.
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Who had Sienna Miller as a guest on their show? When?? How did I miss it?!?
*sigh* Guess I’ll miss it again.
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Hotties in the Hot Seat? lol Yeah, lemme tell you, those gals get some tough questions.
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Oh this is just bad, bad. I hope no one watches, screw them.
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Whoever subs for Leno will forever be on my blacklist.
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Now is a great time to catch up on reading or video game playing.
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If this strike goes one much longer, we will all need group therapy! My atempt to form a Colbert Report fan club where I live is failing so far. Sigh!!
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So Colbert and Stewart are both down .4 in ratings? Is that significant enough?
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It has been hard, but I have banned Comedy Central from my TV and computer and have not been watching the reruns. Sounds like lots of people are doing that. Hope the production staff won’t get laid off tho, that’s just evil… They could bring their guitars on the picket line!
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Read: The Iron Heel, by Jack London. That’s all I gotta say! Perhaps the picketers could read it aloud whilst picketing.
Or read The Financier by Dreiser.
Capitalism: Same bulls#!t, different century.
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word
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It sounds like some people commenting here are boycotting the reruns in an effort to help the writers. From what I understand, though, that’s the opposite of what we should be doing. The writers get residuals from the televised reruns, so keeping the ratings high will help them get paid (And since residuals for televised reruns aren’t at issue in this strike, it’s not a form of crossing the picket line to watch them.) Watching replacement programming (like if they get guest hosts and don’t use writers for the Tonight Show) is a different matter–that would be crossing the picket line. Of course, if you’re not in a ratings household through Nielsen or Tivo or your cable/satellite company, then I suppose none of the above really matters. :-P
I’m going to be watching the reruns, even though I normally wouldn’t–especially since I can’t get my online clip fix now!
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Yes, but, the less we watch, the more Comedy Central will know that their attempt to try and “appease” their viewers by re-running old episodes has failed miserably. Maybe, just maybe, by not watching, we will show them how disappointed the fans are that execs are doing this to our beloved writers, and, God willing, will help end the strike sooner.
But, that’s just me…
You know it’s funny…as much as we miss all our shows so desperately, remember those things called books? That’s what folks used to do before TV. LOL!
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