Comedy Gold

'Daily Show' Personality Gets His Own Platform (NY Times...a registration-free link, in theory)

By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: May 4, 2005

Stephen Colbert, who plays a phony correspondent on the fake-news program "The Daily Show," is getting a real promotion.

Comedy Central said yesterday that it was giving Mr. Colbert his own show: a half-hour that is expected to follow "The Daily Show" on weeknights and will lampoon those cable-news shows that are dominated by the personality and sensibility of a single host. Think, he said, of Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity.

Where "The Daily Show" and its host, Jon Stewart, generally spoof the headlines of the day (and the anchors and reporters who deliver them), Mr. Colbert's program will send up those hosts who have become household names doing interviews and offering analyses each night on the 24-hour cable news channels. The program, which is expected to begin appearing on Comedy Central as soon as early fall, is being produced by Mr. Stewart's production company, Busboy Productions.

(first seen on my favorite pinko commie America-hating blog, Atrios)