Daily comedy show to sit alongside Piers Morgan and Julia Hartley-Brewer

Rupert Murdoch’s new TV news channel is planning a daily satirical panel show to go out live.

The topical comedy would air on TalkTV alongside programmes hosted by such firebrands as Piers Morgan, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Mike Graham – who last year attracted much derision for telling an environmentalist you could ‘grow concrete’.

News UK, the media giant behind the channel, has advertised a number of jobs relating to a ‘weeknight satirical panel show’ on its vacancies website. 

Roles on offer - and spotted by journalism website Press Gazette – include a series editor, senior producer, producers and a researcher, All are offered as 12-month contracts.

The description for the senior producer position says: ‘You’ve got a thorough knowledge of news and current affairs, can spot a great story and have a good sense of humour - being able to see the humour in otherwise straight news stories.  An interest in satirical TV panel shows would be advantageous.’

Meanwhile, the researcher will be ‘encouraged to suggest how humour and comic moments can be drawn from the news stories of the day’.

The channel is set to launch early this year, with many programmes also being streamed on Fox Nation  in the US and aired on Sky News in Australia.

News UK publishes The Times and The Sun and owns Talk Radio, Talk Sport and Virgin Media. Tthe new channel is expected to be populist and right-leaning, at least as far as Ofcom’s impartiality guidelines allow.

Executives will be hoping the new satirical show might rival Have I Got News For You, pictured– although that show’s producer Richard Wilson previously told The Times that ‘the problem with a lot of right-wing columnists is sometimes the atmosphere goes a bit sour’.

Published: 7 Jan 2022