Nightly shows are the name of the game in the world of late-night Television. The competition of “The Tonight Show” and “Late Show” and “Conan” and all the others requires constant content being produced to put in front of viewers to keep them from going anywhere. Comedy Central has a couple of nightly late-night shows of its own with “The Daily Show” and “@midnight” hosted by Chris Hardwick from “Talking Dead,” and now it’s getting a weekly late-night show hosted by Australian comedian Jim Jefferies.
Jefferies will travel the world for the show
Jefferies has yet to give his show a title, but it originated as a pilot and has been picked up for ten episodes, which will air sometime this summer.
In the series, Jefferies will visit various places around the world to connect with people involved in today’s big issues and the biggest stories of the week. It will be controversial, but that’s exactly how Jefferies likes it, based on his stand-up material.
According to a Comedy Central statement, in addition to tackling the controversial topics in the world and the top headline news of the week, he will discuss President Donald Trump, because “unfortunately, there’s no way he can avoid it.” Jefferies is executive producing the show alongside “Tosh.0” producer Scott Zabielski, and talent reps Alex Murray and Tim Sarkes from management firm Brillstein Entertainment Partners. The head writer and co-executive producer of the show will be Jason Reich, who wrote for “The Daily Show” when Jon Stewart was the host and also worked as a writer on “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” on TBS.
Kent Alterman, the President of Comedy Central, said that Jefferies possesses “a huge comedic voice” with “global” appeal, and as work on this show has gone on, they have been delighted to discover that “his talent is only surpassed by his incredible work ethic.”
No premiere date set for the show
Comedy Central has yet to give Jefferies’ show an official airdate or timeslot in which it will be broadcasted.
The weekend is free, since Comedy Central’s other late-night shows “The Daily Show” and “@midnight” air through the week, or there could be a further shuffle involving those two shows. A lot of late-night shows have been changing to or considering a change to weekly broadcasts. It used to be that only “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO was weekly, but now John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” and TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” have popularised the format and Chelsea Handler’s Netflix show is making the switch to weekly for its second season, while Conan O’Brien is considering a similar change.
Go and check out Jefferies’ comedy specials, particularly “Bare” and “FreeDumb,” both of which are available on Netflix. His past television credits include his own sitcom on FX called “Legit,” which was cancelled after two seasons because it moved to FXX, which no one knew existed at the time, and an appearance on “Real Time” where he slammed Trump supporter Piers Morgan. Jefferies also just finished his worldwide comedy tour “The Unusual Punishment Tour.”
