I'm here, I'm here

Look at this. Just three weeks after my resolution to write more I am back on my blog. It wasn't so easy to blog from Colorado. Well just take a look at the shape of the blog post I did manage. The layout annoys me. Plus I got sick towards the end of Colorado, actually right in the middle. Skied on, trooper that I am, but I did have afternoon sleeps and early nights. Still got a bit of a cough at the minute but I'm doing my best to eradicate afternoon sleeps.

Skiing stories will come, just as soon as I have the energy to tackle photos on Blogger, but for now you will receive a rant about one of my favourite TV shows ever, The Daily Show. It's been shown on More4 for the past 5 years or so (apparently...I've been watching since 2008 and my return). I watched it in NC and the weekly Global Edition in Singapore and you might remember I went to see a show be taped when I was in NYC in January 2008.

WELL...

More4 have only gone and decide to stop showing it. Gutted. Beyond belied. Because I watched on Sky Planner I totally missed the announcement that came at the end of the last show before Christmas:

"and that's the end of The Daily Show on More4 but the Global Edition returns on Monday 10th January."

From four shows a week to a hotch potch, mishmashed one episode?! That hardly seems fair!  The best stuff Jon Stewart does is at the beginning of the show when he shows clips from the news channels and makes fun of their one sidedness/over-reaction/misunderstanding of events. The majority of this is all cut to about ten minutes. The guests too, cut down from four to just one. Last week, according to their website, they had Denis Leary (an actor), Colin Firth (an actor...you knew that, right?), Tim Pawlenty (former Minnesota Governor and potential 2012 Republican candidate) and Ron Howard (Sunday, Monday, Happy Days, oh, and an Oscar award winning director). Who was the guest they chose to put out on the Global Edition? Denis Leary! Not just my last choice of interview to see, but I'd say probably yours too.

The interwebs has been a buzz with the decision from More4. No really it has, you just have to look for it. There's an article here from the Guardian. One here from the New Statesman and forums and blog posts and Facebook pages.

For my part, I have written two emails, one to Comedy Central asking them to consider showing the proper Daily Show on their UK channel. Well, it is a Comedy Central show after all. No reply yet from them. Hmm. Probably just looking into their finances and where to schedule it?

The second email I wrote was to the good people at Channel 4/More4 who made this decision. From having done my research on t'internet, I knew there was a copy and paste email that I was bound to get back. So to beat them to it, I pasted it in to my email along with expressing my disappointment that such a great show be stopped in the UK. The typical response from C4 reads something like this:

Thank you for your e-mail. We are sorry to read that you are disappointed about More4's decision to discontinue showing The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show has been a fixture of weeknights on More4 for five years now and - just like with 'Friends' on E4' - the time eventually comes to say goodbye to programmes we've loved to make way for other programmes.

The Daily Show is an US acquisition and while we will continue to buy overseas programmes for More4, we have decided to spend more of the More4 budget on local commissions such as True Stories, which help support the UK independent production sector.

You will still be able to view The Daily Show Global edition every Monday on More4. We've also got our own home-grown satirical take on the week's news coming up later this year on Channel 4 in the form of the 10 O'Clock Show, which we hope you will enjoy.

Please be assured your complaint has been logged and noted for the information of those responsible for our programming.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us. We appreciate all feedback from our viewers; complimentary or otherwise.

Regards,

Someone Someone
Channel 4 Viewer Enquiries


So my email included these points which I politely asked them to respond to:

1. The 10 o'clock show is unproven as yet. Can you confirm it will cover American politics and get equally important 'big name' guests such as Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Condoleeza Rice?

2. While it is available on iTunes, it costs £10 for 16 episodes. Can you provide me with contact details to Courvoiser (the UK sponsors) so as they could continue to sponsor my viewing of The Daily Show?

3. Friends ended in 2004 and the repeats have been shown here on E4 for more than six years. Are there plans for repeats of The Daily Show to be shown 4 or 5 times a day on More4 for an equally long time? I ask, because you are the one who made the comparison to Friends.

I'm not hopeful of any sort of different reply to the kind others have received, but it might make someone smile, somewhere, somehow.

Interestingly, one of the people who can use their sway to reverse this decision is Jay Hunt, the new Chief Creative Officer at C4. You might have heard of her before, she's the woman who cut Adrian from Friday nights at The One Show to make way for Chris Flipping Evans, which caused Adrian to leave the BBC and Christine to follow suit. 

I shan't hold my breath then.

(If you'd like to join the protest and log your complaint, email ViewerEnquiries@channel4.co.uk. Go on even if you don't care send them a wee email saying you're disappointed.)