Fox to Launch Conservative ‘Daily Show’ Clone

Seeing the success of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report,” Fox News is working on a conservative news satire show.

Fox News Channel might air two episodes of a “Daily Show”-like program with a decidedly nonliberal bent on Saturday nights in late January, with the possibility that it could become a weekly show for the channel.

The half-hour show is executive produced by “24′s” Joel Surnow and Manny Cota and creator Ned Rice, who previously wrote for “Politically Incorrect” and “Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” through This Just In Prods. It would take aim at what Surnow calls “the sacred cows of the left” that don’t get made as much fun of by other comedy shows. “It’s a satirical news format that would play more to the Fox News audience than the Michael Moore channel,” Surnow said. “It would tip more right as ‘The Daily Show’ tips left.”

There would certainly be an audience for such a show but the description here does not look promising. For one thing, a once-a-week format is unlikely to work. There are already a flurry of late-night comedians doing their takes on the events of the day, not to mention “Saturday Night Live” and other weekly venues. Immediacy is part of the effectiveness of these shows. Further, it’s not just the format that has done so well for Comedy Central but the hosts. Unless they find someone with the comedic timing and ability to be simultaneously likable and snarky that Stewart and Colbert possess, the show won’t make it.

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Fox to Launch Conservative ‘Daily Show’ Clone

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