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Comedy Channel drops Letterman, Fallon, Leno

Not very good news for fans of late night US TV hosts on the Comedy Channel.

Some readers have been asking about changes coming to the Comedy Channel regarding late night US TV hosts.

Unfortunately it isn’t good news…

A Foxtel spokesperson tells TV Tonight, “From July 1 Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will come out of The Comedy Channel schedule.

“The Late Night Legends programming block has recently performed below expectations within that time slot.

“From July 1 Saturday Night Live encore screenings can be seen weeknights from 10.30pm.”

86 Responses

  1. I can’t believe with the amount of channels on Foxtel there is no way of showing these awesome late night shows – it is beyond belief – also I have been told that Comedy Channel still owns the rights to these shows but are just choosing not to air them, which is ridiculous as then nobody here gets to see them – I hope they get shown again soon wether on The Comedy Channel or a different channel – and I’m very keen to see the new Conan O’Brien show starting in November – I also prefer Letterman on Comedy Channel as Ten are often way off in terms of being on proper scheduled time – last year Comedy had five late night talk shows back to back, now there are none, with Letterman on Ten the only one left – Kimmel also should be airing here too but its not – I hope these shows come back and in November bring on Conan!

  2. hey foxtel here’s a news flash for ya . none of us want SNL u dimwits . give us back jay , jimmy and dave .. do u think taking those 3 of air will increase ur consumer base?? i dont think so , but then again they are foxtel and they allways making bad decisions about programing .

  3. @ Billy – I feel the same, it doesn’t feel right not having Jay Leno on anymore, missing he’s funny monologue (Jay Leno even said funny stuff about Australia from time to time), headlines , 911 calls , Stuff We Found on Ebay , Jaywalking etc. I still have some hope that it will be back on sometime in the future on another Foxtel/Austar channel (maybe Arena) or maybe the Comedy Channel will cave in to the pressure from viewer emails.

  4. Its now been a couple of days and I can’t stand it without Jay Leno !!!
    Nothing about the comedy channel even starts to create a smile now !!
    The most stupidest thing they have ever done. It was too established , it was always there , always exclusive and I can’t believe they have stopped it !!
    Unbelievable.

  5. The thing that annoys me the most is they never advertised it. They’ve had it for 14 years and suddenly its gone, somethings not right. Maybe the comedy channel is of dosh. Even the howto channel can get martha stewart off the satellite.
    You’d think if it wasn’t doing well they would move it to a different timeslot or even channel.

    I used to think that station was the best on Foxtel. Now theres 1 show i would consider watching off it and even that’s already been on channel 7 (iasip)

  6. I agree, they better pick up Conan’s new TBS talk show, I think it’s going to be really good because Conan did a great job hosting the tonight show for 6 months.
    Until then I will not be watching the comedy channel, far too many repeat shows.

  7. Oh well, at least we still have Chelsea on E at 10.30, she is funnier than all the departed threesome put together. In fact Chuy is funnier than them…

  8. @paul I’m pretty sure they will pick up Conan’s TBS show with all the media surrounding it. I doubt the inevitable failure of SNL 5 nights a week will suede them too much. I think as others have said its a matter of cost cutting and just one program, snl, will be cheaper than 5 different talk shows. Its absolute bs, seeing as this is a pay service.

  9. @ Musketeer – nice to hear you got the same response from the Comedy Channel as I and many other people will do. As I said before it will just be a matter of time (3 to 4 months) before the Comedy Channel realise that hardly anyone is watching repeats of SNL which are proberly months and months old and they will have little option but to put the 3 late night talk shows back on and as for the comedy channel showing Conan’s new show in november, well lets just say at this stage I won’t be betting on it.

  10. WTF Iis this!! They take what made comedy channel awesome and destroyed it. I was f*n pis**ed when they took off Kimmel, now the rest too? Actually I don’t care too much bout the rest, Letterman’s on 10 at the same time, Fallon and Leno suck donkey ass. Just bring back Kimmel and I wouldn’t care…

  11. You know now the only reason to keep comedy channel is the daily show and colbert, and if they weren’t on in a busy timeslot on FTA TV where it’d always clash with recording things, i wouldn’t bother.

  12. absolutely disgusted. these three shows entertained my night. how do they expect SNL to do any better when they’re repeats and out of context. i saw the ‘as of june 30 letterman is leaving’ ad and assumed it was just him.. can anybody list the emails of other possible networks so we can write to them and they will hopefully see the numbers of people who actually Do want these shows.

    pretty certain i am going to cancel my comedy channel subscription.
    good bye overused south park and those really new episodes of ‘blankety blanks’..

  13. I got exactly the same response from the Comedy Channel as Paul below. Obviously a cut’n’paste job.

    Ah well, I guess we don’t have any reason to watch the Comedy Channel any more.

  14. No great losses … Jimmy Fallon was OK, Letterman is on Ten anway, and Leno – I dont think anyone cared about Leno after the whole Conan thing…

    Hopefully they might come to their senses and maybe try Conans new show, bring back Jimmy Kimmel (who is funnier than Fallon & Leno combined … c’mon, the Leno piss-take show, doing a show by webcam when the power goes off … good stuff!), and give Craig Ferguson a go – search YouTube for his Murder She Wrote sketches & you’ll p**s yourself laughing!

    Comedy is quickly becoming a TV1 / FOX8 hybrid … same old repeated rehashed crap over & over, with nothing new or exciting. Most of the SNL episodes they show are repeats, so putting even more repeats on is pathetic. Not bad for a channel thats just gone widescreen – then they axe the few shows they have that are worth watching in widescreen. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

  15. Well, some of these are on sites like Hulu:

    But of course, you won’t be able to watch any of these online-because these are usually blocked in Australia.

  16. This is a terrible decision by the comedy channel. These shows were about the only thing worth watching. I never did quite see the point of letterman since it was always pretty much simulcast with the same episode on ten, and I will never forgive Leno for what he did to Conan. I really like Jimmy Fallon. As many others have observed he has been getting much better and he really is quite topical, great guests and great music – has anyone heard his tar balls song – an instant classic. And they should at least be made to show it for July as it is still in the magazine that it is on – it was only when iaw that it had come off the series link that i reliased they had changed their mind. I suppose it may not fit in with the image that the comedy channel is trying to cultivate with the fresh comedies they have like Are you Being Served, Allo Allo and the Goodies. And I will certainly not be watching SNL – I have sent feedback with the empty promise of cancelling my subscription.

  17. Losing letterman is not too bad. As a big fan I can still watch him on Channel 10.
    Jimmy Fallon though, I hope gets picked up by another station, Maybe a digital channel could play Fallon at its intended timeslot of around 11pm. 7two had Leno on at 6pm which was weird.
    All in all though I just hope some channel picks up Craig Ferguson. He is the best of the bunch.

  18. @Paul – nice letter from TCC but don’t they get that the same people who want to watch current celebrities on Talk Shows don’t want SNL re-runs that are years old. I only watch TCC for these talk shows if there was nothing on FTA.

    I wonder if TCC will reply to my email with the same letter?

    @Grinspoon – good point about Conan.

  19. first kimmel.

    then they slowly killed bill maher by delaying episodes by at least 2 weeks so the events covered were no longer relevant followed by it’s final death blow – being moved to 11.15 sundays nights.

    and now this.

    you f***ing jerks!

  20. If they want to improve their ratings why not attempt to put these shows on a bit earlier at more watchable hours, rather than simply scrapping them completely. Foxtel (& Optus in my case) are really pushing their luck with the way they treat their paying customers.

  21. Actually here’s an interesting thing… I wonder how much of the decline in ratings can be attributed to no Conan?

    Also if it’s a decline from the big block of conan, leno, kimmel, falon, not from what was there previously.

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