| The Apiary Network |  |
 |
 |
||
 | |||||
March 25, 2008
Should Comedy Central Fear CNN?
The Comedy Central Insider today announced its displeasure upon reading an article stating that CNN will be launching two shows back to back beginning April 5th. The first is called Not Just Another Cable News Show, a new challenger in the news satire arena. The other show (which is a bad idea) is called News to Me, a series that plays hot Web videos. CCI's Dustin Chinn writes:
Oh, CNN. Have you learned nothing from FOX News'? Why do I have a feeling this'll be just like the "1/2 Hour News Hour," only with less political invective and an even feebler grasp on context?So if I'm reading this correctly, CNN will be dedicating two hours of its Saturday programming to the next Tay Zonday and mocking its own footage collection instead of, I don't know, doing their jobs.
Don't you try to label CNN. Surely you've seen Erica Hill and Anderson Cooper tweefully superpoke each other in their bellies on AC 360. Or perhaps you've watched Nancy Grace for more than 5 minutes. CNN is just responding to what America wants: news you can LOL to and forget the next day. It's the internetification of television.
CNN says Not Just Another Cable News Show "will take a lighthearted look back at famous--and infamous--stories that made the news, including some of the most unforgettable political blunders of our time." Rather than being a Daily Show clone, it sounds like it's something more retrospective, like an Awesomely Bad series for wonkish news junkies. That could be fun, right?
The larger story though for the folks at Viacom who worry about terms like "market share" might be that Time Warner is using many of its other properties to eke more control of CC's demographic. It's a multi-tiered strategic assault happening with many of TW's subsidiaries like Cartoon Network, HBO, and TBS--not just CNN. Can we ever really know for sure though whether some other transglobal corporation is trying to undermine our own transglobal corporation?
CNN Pisses Away Final Shred of Integrity with Comedy News Show
Posted by The Apiary at March 25, 2008 4:19 PM