Late Show UK

The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien has been nominated at this year’s Emmy Awards.

The now defunct NBC show is nominated for “Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series” against The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live and Real Time With Bill Maher.

Conan tweeted “Congrats to my staff on 4 Emmy nominations. This bodes well for the future of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien”.

Jay Leno spoke about the nominations for The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien on his show this week, saying “the big show business news is that the Emmy nominations were announced today… the good news: The Tonight Show got four nominations! The bad news: I didn’t get one of them… remember there’s no ‘me’ in Emmy”.

Saturday Night Live is also nominated in the “Guest Actress in a Comedy Series” category for Betty White and Tina Fey’s appearances on the show.

TV Squad – “Emmy Awards 2010 Nominees List”
TV Guide – “Jay Leno Pokes Fun at Losing Emmy Nominations to Conan O’Brien”
The Associated Press – “Reactions to the 62nd annual Emmy nominations”

Stephen Colbert hosted The Colbert Report this week, despite being sick.

Colbert hosted the show in a robe and “nana’s blanket” – he joked “she put up quite a fight when I took it”. He made it through the show but said “I have a fever and there is nothing left in my stomach”.

Click here to watch a clip from the show.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have signed new deals to keep them at Comedy Central for a few more years.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report will remain on Comedy Central to cover the next US election and beyond.

The Associated Press reports “Comedy Central said Tuesday that in separate agreements, Stewart agreed to host “The Daily Show” through June 2013 and Colbert will stick with “The Colbert Report” until the end of 2012. The two shows air in the 11 p.m. Eastern to midnight block”.

The Associated Press – “New Comedy Central deals for Stewart and Colbert”

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report episodes can now be downloaded on iTunes for people in the UK.

This is the first time it’s been possible to download episodes through iTunes UK.

Thanks to Olivia Coghlan at Comedy Central UK for the headsup.

Go to www.comedycentral.co.uk/downloads for details on how to download the shows, or if you already have iTunes installed click the links below to open iTunes:

iTunes UK – The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
iTunes UK – The Colbert Report

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report both return to Comedy Central with brand new episodes tonight – the first new shows since the Christmas break. Both shows will now be broadcast in high definition for the first time.

Comedy Central’s US channel first went HD in early 2008 but The Daily Show and The Colbert Report stayed in SD. It’s taken a while for the shows to make the transition to HD because all the control rooms had to be updated. Broadcasting Cable says the upgrades we carried out “while continuing to put on a program four times a week”.

Broadcasting Cable – “‘Daily Show’ and ‘Colbert Report’ Going HD In Jan. 2010″

The Colbert Report has been missing from UK TV since FX UK abruptly dropped it. Now the show has been added to the UK iTunes store.

The cost is £9.99 for a “multipass” (15 episodes) or £1.89 per episode. The direct iTunes link for The Colbert Report is available on the official Comedy Central UK website – click here.

There’s no word yet on if The Colbert Report will be coming to the Comedy Central UK TV channel any time soon, but this new Comedy Central iTunes deal is a step in the right direction.

We’ve started a new group on Facebook which will act as a petition. The aim is to get The Colbert Report back on UK television – it’s not been available on UK TV for several months.

Click here to go directly to the Facebook group – you just need to join it to show your support and leave a message if you wish. Thank you. Once we have enough group members we will contact various television channels to present it to them.

Please visit our Petitions page for details on all our campaigns – past and present.

The nominations for the 2009 Emmy Awards have been announced.

Read the rest of this entry »

Operation Iraqi Stephen

The Colbert Report has been coming from Iraq all of this week. Stephen Colbert has been out there entertaining the troops and reporting on the latest from the Iraq military operations.

The week’s worth of shows dubbed “Operation Iraqi Stephen” saw Stephen make it in to the news headlines on various occasions, including for his army-style haircut which was “ordered” by President Barack Obama over a video feed.

No Fact Zone has been providing excellent reports on The Colbert Report’s week in Iraq – go to www.nofactzone.net for more.

Click here to watch videos from The Colbert Report’s week in Iraq

The Colbert Report is no longer in the FX UK schedules. FX UK’s contract for The Colbert Report was up for renewal on the 1st May this year, so it seems it’s not being renewed.

I’ll try to get the official word from FX themselves and let you know if we have any further news, but at this stage it looks as though it’s been dropped from the channel altogether.

If it has been axed from FX, perhaps it’s the ideal time for More 4 to purchase The Daily Show spin-off, or maybe the newly-launched Comedy Central channel in the UK (formerly Paramount Comedy).

Vote for the “Indecision 2008″ blog from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report teams. The Comedy Central blog is nominated in the (rather oddly named) “Best Very Large Blog” category in The 2008 Weblog Awards. Click here to cast your vote. Polls close tomorrow (13th January) at 10pm GMT (UK) so head on over there now before it’s too late.

You’ll need to stay up later (or set your V+/Sky+ box) to watch The Colbert Report on FX UK as it now airs at around midnight (it used to air at around 11pm) Monday-Friday. This can vary.

For example, Wednesday’s edition airs at 12am, Thursday’s edition airs at 12.05am, Friday’s edition airs at 12am. On Monday next week, The Colbert Report Global Edition will be on at 12.15am.

They also now appear to be airing The Colbert Report at midnight on Saturdays as well, and the usual repeats airing in the early hours of Sunday morning (from around 2am).

Check your TV’s electronic programme guide for more information.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report are jointly at number 10 in The Guardian’s list of “The 10 Best US TV shows of 2008″.

The Guardian says “In a year dominated by election coverage… the best political commentary was still found on Comedy Central where Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert skewed everyone regardless of political affiliation”.

The Guardian – “The 10 Best US TV shows of 2008″

All US talk shows return with new programmes next week following the Christmas & New Year break. On Monday’s shows;

The Late Show With David Letterman will welcome British comedian Ricky Gervais, actress Kate Hudson and Scottish band Glasvegas. The Tonight Show With Jay Leno will have Terry Bradshaw, Jack Witherspoon and music from Iron & Wine.

Late Night With Conan O’Brien will have guests Benicio Del Toro, actress Sarah Chalke and Doyle & Debbie. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart will have David Gregory as a guest, and John King will be the guest on The Colbert Report.

Richard Lewis and Tracie Thoms will be on the Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson.

Other guests to look out for next week include Jimmy Fallon (Late Show), Kate Winslet (Late Show), Kiefer Sutherland (Late Show), Anne Hathaway (The Tonight Show), Dustin Hoffman (The Tonight Show), Daniel Craig (The Tonight Show), Kate Hudson (Late Night), Kate Hudson (The Daily Show), William Shatner (Late Late Show) and Amy Sedaris (Late Late Show).

Guest listings in full for next week and beyond are available here.

TIME has announced its Top 10 lists for 2008, including Top 10 TV Episodes and Top 10 Late Night Gags.

The Colbert Report episode from the 22nd January came in at number seven in the Top 10 TV Episodes list featuring civil rights activist Andrew Young and they discussed the strike by black hospital workers in 1969. This 22nd January episode came just as The Colbert Report returned after it had been off-air for the WGA writers strike.

In the Top 10 Late Night Gags list, the Late Show With David Letterman came in at number five for John McCain’s appearance cancellation near the end of his US election campaign. John McCain said he had to cancel to head straight to Washington to fix the problems with the US economy, when in truth he was still in New York for several hours doing other things such as the CBS News interview with Katie Couric. Letterman publicly tuned into the live CBS Newspath feed to see John McCain sitting with Katie preparing for the interview. Senator McCain was the butt of many jokes over the shows that followed, and after Barack Obama won the US election, Letterman said “you don’t show up for me – America doesn’t show up for you”. John McCain did eventually make it onto the programme though, and said he’d “screwed up”.

Late Night With Conan O’Brien was at number seven in the Top 10 Late Night Gags list for the “Zipline Challenge” he did when he returned to the air in January after being off-air for the WGA writers strike.

The “Who Made Mike Huckabee” ongoing debate came to a head on Late Night With Conan O’Brien in February after show crossovers between The Daily Show and Late Night (if you don’t know what we’re talking about, click here) – this is at number four in the Top 10 Late Night Gags list.

Stephen Colbert’s “Green-Screen Challenge” made it into the Top 10 Late Night Gags list at number three (click here to read more).

Jimmy Kimmel Live’s ongoing “I’m F***ing Matt Damon” gag got the top spot in the Top 10 Late Night Gags list (click here to read more).

TIME – “Top 10 TV Episodes” | TIME – “Top 10 Late Night Gags”

Last night’s joint TV programme between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert went out live coast-to-coast on Comedy Central and was also shown on the big screen in Times Square, New York. The live programme (or “Actually Live” as they said) – called “Indecision 2008: America’s Choice” – was an historic event in itself with Colbert and Stewart teaming up for a live broadcast.

As More 4 air The Daily Show With Jon Stewart in the UK and FX UK air The Colbert Report in the UK, this special “Indecision 2008: America’s Choice” programme will be shown on both channels. It will be on More 4 at 8.45pm tonight and on FX UK at 10pm tonight. The show is about 1 hour long.

If you can’t wait until tonight, the official election blog for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (Indecision2008.com) has uploaded various clips from the special 4th November show.

Jon Stewart got the chance to announce Barack Obama was the next US President live as it happened. The Associated Press reports “Stewart became the first comedian to announce presidential election results on live national television. Sensing the end was imminent, the broadcast delayed its signoff for a moment, as offstage producers gave the closing cue while hovering over TV monitors showing. When they said the election had been called, the comedians effectively became newsmen”. Jon Stewart looked close to tears as he announced “at 11 o’clock at night – Eastern Standard Time – the president of the United States is Barack Obama”.

Indecision2008.com – Videos
The Associated Press – “Stewart, Colbert parody election in real-time”

Last updated 4th November

There will be a US Election special combining The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report on election night – Tuesday 4th November. The special show – called “Indecision 2008: America’s Choice” will air live on Comedy Central in the US (west coast) from 7pm-8pm PT and will be shown from 10pm-11pm ET. The special show will broadcast from The Daily Show studio in New York and will also be screened on the huge JumboTron TV screen in Times Square.

A press release on Comedy Central’s website says The Daily Show and The Colbert Report “head into November coming off the series’ most watched month ever in October” and that they “are currently on pace to record their most watched years ever”. The press release also reveals “there will also be a Live Blogging Event [on the indecision2008.com website] from 7:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m. ET with comedian Patton Oswalt” and “postings will take place all day by the site’s bloggers who will report the latest news on the presidential election as well as the hot races in the House and Senate”.

For viewers in the UK, More 4 will be airing this special show the following night (Wednesday 5th November) at 8.45pm through to 9.35pm. More 4 is available on Freeview, Virgin Media and Sky. FX UK will also air the special show on Wednesday 5th November at 10pm. FX UK is available on Virgin Media and Sky.

On a related election note – Barack Obama appeared on The Daily Show last night, which will be broadcast on More 4 tonight (Thursday 30th October) at 8.30pm.

Read the Comedy Central press release – click here.