So what about the ABC? The Weekly was sold to audiences as being an Australian version of The Daily Show, but that was never going to happen. But while The Feed occasionally reaches over into the realm of political satire, it’s still a news show at heart, albeit one where the hosts get to say what they think." That tradition of “news coverage – with a twist” is being kept alive by SBS’s The Feed, which brings the sass of online op-eds to television while still providing actual information. Which is a shame, because back in the late 80s we had shows like Channel Nine’s Graham Kennedy’s Coast to Coast, on which Kennedy tore the news – and everything else – to shreds: Getting them to adopt a format that deliberately alienates half the audiences? Good luck. Our networks are losing viewers on a daily basis to the internet they want as many viewers to watch their shows as possible. Thanks to their subscription model, they actually want shows that polarise audiences because the bland middle ground isn’t going to pay money to watch a show.īut in Australia, the opposite applies. On US cable television, that doesn’t really matter. That’s why these shows have a big impact online they’re preaching to the choir, and that’s always fun when you’re one of the ones wearing the white robes.īut that’s also why they’re not big ratings winners even at the best of times, The Daily Show brought in a relatively small audience, rating 3.5 million viewers in the US at its peak, and now that Jon Stewart’s gone it’s even smaller. They’re niche viewing, not middle of the road programming. One of the nuances that’s sometimes lost in a more left-leaning country like Australia is that these shows are actively mocking a large section of the US. In a world where The Bolt Report can get on the air, what’s really stopping Australia from having its own Daily Show? Money would be an issue – writers would have to be paid, along with researchers to gather the news clips that are at the heart of the format – but let’s pretend for a moment that wasn’t a problem. There’s no shortage of funny people here who could host making it daily (well, four nights a week) would actually make it easier to gather material, as weekly shows often find their best material is out-of-date by the time they air. Most of them don’t hold up under close inspection. There’s plenty of obvious reasons why Australia doesn’t have its own version of The Daily Show. We did bring back Hey Hey It’s Saturday though.
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January 2023
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