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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.

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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. WTF this is BS i bet they rate better then the 100’s re runs of some of there so loved shows.
    They replace it with SNL a show they cut down to death to 30mins with out ads Shocking.

  2. I can’t believe that. Not even swapping them around and trying other timeslots?
    Or another channel ?? how much will we miss by the time another channel steps in ?

  3. Hey Patrick Delaney, Kim Williams et al…

    A bleeding obvious statement for you here, but one you obviously need to heed:

    You wonder why people download……………………..

  5. I can’t believe The Comedy Channel thinks repeats of SNL 5 nights a week will perform any better, the only hope of Late Night & The Tonight Show remaining on Australian TV is if another Foxtel channel picks them up e.g Arena or Bio or 7TWO can pick up the rights, but I highly doubt it. The Comedy Channel has just lost another viewer and don’t get any hopes up on Comedy getting rights to Conan’s new show, they might then cancel it a few months later!

  6. Terrible decision – these were some of the best programs on Foxtel overall.

    Hopefully 7Two or GO! can pick some up. I recall Bio Channel had Letterman at one point, so perhaps another channel can swoop in. But not good for Comedy, repeats of SNL won’t draw me in.

  7. So sad I was also thinking of emailing asking the same question I too hope that at least they get an agreement to get Conan’s Show. I nearly thought The Late Show was only going because it was on 2 channels but this announcement surprises me.

  8. damn. and i can’t cancel it cos my folks love the 13th street channel, as well as hallmark (soon to be known as universal).

    And they wonder why people torrent…

  9. This is bad news!, in a few months time I bet the comedy channel will realise they made a mistake and all 3 late night shows will be back on, until then on July 1st, I will cancel the package the comedy channel is in on Austar. I least that will save me $14 dollars a month.

  10. They’d better get Conan’s new show when it starts in November, or else I’ll be spamming their website with plenty of annoying hate-mail.
    Their Twitter feed already blocked me during the Leno/Conan debacle earlier in the year for me simply replying “F*ck Jay Leno. #TeamConan” to some note saying that Tim Allen was going to be on Leno’s abomination of a nightly show at the time…

    Pair Conan’s new show with Fallon, and I’m pretty sure ratings will be respectible. Maybe even chuck them on later, closer to the time they air in the states (after 11). I have iQ, so the time of the day doesn’t really bother me.

  11. This is absolutely ridiculous. These late night talk shows have been on the comedy channel for such a long time. Why pull them off now and then just replace it with SNL??

  13. Its bad enough that Saturday Night Live is on once a week, now its on every day. I wish they would also update the commercials for it week bty week, so sick of that same commercial playing all the time.
    The only tonight show I watched was Leno, but now I dont have iQ, I’m not wating until midnight to see it, especially when it used to be on at 10pm.

  15. Of course it’s not going to rate, may work well in America…. here i like my variety to be closer to prime time rather than “late night”. Years ago when the Leno/O’Brien double started at 9:30pm, was the best period.

    Viewers will have to hope that another channel on Foxtel has room for the lineup or at least one of the shows (hopefully not Leno!).

  17. say whaaaatt! What a joke. This sort of thing only for discourages me with Foxtel. Commedy is one of my primary viewing channels, and in particular the late night shows….

    I loves me my SNL, but lemme have a guess, they be playing the same old repeats, in no particular order, edited to the hilt.

    Foxtel, you have nearly lost me as a customer. (Contract up in August).

  19. i no longer have foxtel so it doesn’t really affect me but i just dont get what foxtel are doing(who owns 100% of the comedy channel), they should adding more programs no taking them away, i get if these shows were all moving to FTA around the same time but whats the point of replacing it with encore eps of SNL, i get if they moved new comedy shows to that timeslot or even from another foxtel channel such as fox8 so they could fit more programing in, and i would like to know what there ‘expectations’ are for these shows?, im guessing they are losing money on them but foxtel is moving away of what ‘cable’ tv is supposed to be more and more offen now

  20. And they thing SNL re-runs will do better than new late night, sorry CC you screwed up this time!

    I was just getting use to watching Letterman at 10:30 instead of waiting for it on TEN at 11:15 and now we don’t have Fallon or Leno, bad move IMO…

    We need a talk show channel, surely they can find enough of them from the US and UK to fill 24 hours, maybe 12 with them re-run 12 hours later?

    FLY Fallon is still listed in the printed (just received) Austar guide.

  21. Since when do ratings matter on pay tv? Isn’t there a reason we pay for it? What a disgrace.. If it wasn’t for Chelsea Lately I would cancel my subscription.

  23. Happy about Leno but surprised about the other two. They used to repeat these shows at lunchtime-they should have kept that up.
    Hopefully the are making room for Conan’s new show

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