TV station Comedy Central now has a localized version in Germany. Finally, Jon Stewart's Daily Show would be available in Germany on the daily basis that its title promises instead of that international summary version which airs once a week on CNN International at an impossible time! Or would it? And when exactly?
I successfully guessed the site name www.comedycentral.de and visited it looking for answers. Since they don't seem to have a drop-down list of shows like many other TV station Web sites do (it's an obvious thing to do), I enter "daily show" in the search field at the top. On the result page, there is no match (as of January 17th), but four (!) different search text fields surrounding that meager "no matches" message. So the search doesn't work, but at least you'll get plenty of ways to fail.
How do I know that the search doesn't work? Browsing the site some more I detect a news item at the bottom of the home page mentioning the Daily Show after all. It seems like they don't air the flagship show in Germany! They do reruns of each and every ancient sitcom under the sun, but not The Daily Show. Arrrgh! Would the licensing costs be too high? Would that show attract too many of those well-educated people with money to spend that the advertising industry frowns upon? Anyway, they'll make the show available on their Web site starting January 22nd. With subtitles. For one day. One day after it aired in the US.
According to a DWDL article quoting Markus Andorfer, who's running Comedy Central Germany, the reason is a low number of viewers expected for the show: "Jokes about the Bush administration only appeal to a small target audience". Hmm... Seriously? In Germany? This Germany? How about showing it outside of prime time? Anyway, we should be grateful for what we get. And Comedy Central Germany should update its Web site. Make it easy to find stuff! Put news items at the top instead of flashy ads filling the complete screen!
P.S.: I didn't even try to find out about The Colbert Report. It makes fun of US peculiarities, which according to the logic mentioned above isn't something Germans would enjoy.
A short essay with a plea for bookmark lists.
Started a page on the 2007 Oscars.