CNN is tapping Roy Wood Jr. to help it make Saturday nights a place for comedy tied to the headlines.
The former “Daily Show” correspondent has been named to host “Have I Got News For You,” a U.S. version of the long-running BBC comedy series. A ten-episode run will debut Saturday, September 14 at 9 p.m. eastern on CNN, and will air regularly on Saturdays before being made available on Max, the streaming service that is owned by corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery.
The series joins rebroadcasts of Bill Maher’s HBO roundtable program, “Real Time.” CNN has hopes of branching out into news-driven comedy, according to Amy Entelis, CNN’s executive vice president of talent and content, who told Variety of such plans in a May interview. Weekend viewers might like a break from the intensity of the news week with programs about lifestyle or “have a laugh about something and maybe be able to connect to a personality who wouldn’t necessarily be anchoring a show on CNN or even an original series,” she said “We will be exploring that going forward.”
Related Stories
“Have I Got News For You” has been made available by the BBC since 1990, and typically showcases two teams talking about various news stories on the week. The U.K. show has been so scrutinized that it has been brought to court for utterances of various panelists about news subjects.
Popular on Variety
In Wood, CNN gets a host many feel has long been poised for bigger things. He hosted the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2017 and enjoyed a long tenure as a correspondent at Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” Wood will appear alongside Keanu Reeves and Jonah Hill in the upcoming AppleTV comedy “Outcome,” and has recently been seen in the 2022 movie “Confess, Fletch” and the Hulu series “Only Murders in the Building.”
The comedian left “Daily Show” in 2023, ostensibly frustrated by a protracted effort to find a new host for the program after the departure of Trevor Noah. Wood also told Variety at the time he was eager to find new ways to reach audiences who were no longer tied so closely to traditional late-night programs. “I do not believe late-night as we know it will be the way we continue,” Wood tells Variety. “Budgets are changing, and we are going into the age of some people, demographically, who did not necessarily always grow up with late night. So how do you engage those people and bring those people to the art form?”
“Have I Got News For You” has been produced by Hat Trick Productions since 1990, and the company will also supervise the series in the U.S. Two “captains,” one for each team of panelists, are expected to be named soon. Executive Producers for the American version are Jimmy Mulville, Richard Wilson and Jim Biederman.
