Another Day, Another TV Channel Boycott...

As Canyon recently mentioned on her Facebook page (yes, we have both succumbed to Facebook's inexorable pull. I even have a Twitter page devoted to what I'm eating and what's on TV), we have been greatly angered and saddened by FX's decision not to renew its contract with Comedy Central, meaning the UK has become Colbert-free once more. A very small but piercingly intelligent cross-section of a nation mourns.


We have been dreading this since The Colbert Report debuted a year ago, a dread that intensified after FX (short for FuXX0rz) pushed the show back from 11pm to midnight (we even predicted it here). If a schedule is being tinkered with, something is going wrong. Was it low ratings that sank the show in the UK? Even the lovely folks at Late Show UK have not had any official confirmation from the channel as to why this has happened. That said, we are talking about a channel owned by News Corp, and they're not big on listening to the little guy, preferring instead to take on the role of Heartless Corporate Monolith with such complete dedication that it's almost parodic. I honestly believe they run on the tears of rage shed by the people they crush underfoot like so much blood-filled gravel.


So yeah, we're fucking pissed off. And we're not the only ones. An overwhelming two people are so annoyed at FX that they contributed to this forum. I smell the beginning of a grassroots campaign to change FX's mind. Considering how News Corp got excited about the Tea Bagging parties recently conducted across America (shouldn't that protest have been called Balls Across America's Forehead?), perhaps we should send teabags to FX. Used teabags. That I've rubbed on my forehead.

Or we should just stop watching the stupid channel. I mean, they don't even air the best shows US FX makes; The Shield is aired on Five and Five US, and Sons Of Anarchy is going to Bravo instead. Funny how the US FX business model is to make shows to sell around the world, and UK FX's model is to buy other shows cheap and then dump them when they don't fit their macho line-up. Though it's nice that they're showing Generation Kill, I'd rather see it all in one gulp on DVD. What else does FX have that's worth watching? More Dexter? I'm dutifully plodding through The Most Overrated Show On TV™, but I can just get that some other way. I have no interest in The Listener, or the various Canadian or Australian police procedurals that keep cropping up, and I've got The Wire on DVD so I don't need to watch that any more. Neither does anyone else, now that it's being shown on BBC Four. The only other things they have to offer are Family Guy and American Dad, but seeing as how they are to comedy as Stephenie Meyer is to literature, that's not exactly enticing.


So, we shall find another way to watch our beloved Stephen skewer the right-wing mindset so completely that conservatives don't even realise it's happening, and in the meantime, I'll avoid FX and stick to watching Bravo (so much A-Team!), Sci Fi (Star Trek: TOS is getting a lot of rotation in anticipation of the new movie), Current TV (I can't see enough documentaries made by well-off American post-teens during their most recent backpacking vacation through South America), and Controversial TV (it should be known as Edge Media TV but our EPG has renamed it so that it sounds like it was created by 1980's-Ben-Elton). Fuck FX, fuck Fox, fuck News Corp.