C4 and Sky open late night entertainment slots

Channel 4 and Sky are pushing into late-night comedy entertainment as they seek to offer fresh opportunities for emerging talent.

The broadcasters have issued a call for producers to bring them ideas featuring new faces for post-10pm. Speaking at the Broadcast Commissioning Forum, C4 head of entertainment, TV events and sport Ed Havard said he is keen to find the next iteration of weekly 10pm topical format The Last Leg, and is prepared to invest time and resource in growing the right ideas.

“The next generation of satire is a priority for us,” he said. “We need to look at how we’re experimenting at 10pm, and even possibly 11pm – working out what we can do with talent to take a risk that wouldn’t be possible [earlier in the evening]. It’s no accident that The Last Leg had the space to take the risks that it did.”

Havard said 11pm is “totemic” to Channel 4 and is a slot in which “many of the biggest shows started”.

The broadcaster is developing a late-night satirical show with Ronan Farrow, the journalist who exposed Harvey Weinstein, and Madeleine Smithberg, one of the creators of The Daily Show.

The 30-minute show, produced by Canadian indie Soshefeigh Media, has the working title Cocks News, and will offer a satirical take on the UK as seen through the eyes of America.

Meanwhile, Sky 1 is opening up new slots in a bid to find new talent to rival established stars such as Russell Howard, who recently launched an eponymous weekly show at 10pm.

Sky head of entertainment Phil Edgar Jones said he wants to order a 10.30pm show to follow its slew of forthcoming “edgier” 10pm comedies, including Romesh Ranganathan’s The Reluctant Landlord, produced by What Larks Productions, and Karl Pilkington’s Sick Of It, produced by Me+You Productions and Pilkington’s indie Alrite Productions.

“Sky 1 hasn’t traditionally nurtured new talent but we’re opening up a slot to do just that,” he said. “We want them to come and do something unusual for us.”

The former Big Brother and The Word exec producer said he is open to “all sorts of ideas,” as opposed to being focused on comedy panel shows.

Elsewhere, UKTV is looking to work with new talent earlier in the evening. Deputy director of commissioning Hilary Rosen said it is opening up an 8pm slot on Dave to work with fresh faces.

Last month, it unveiled YouTube star Yianni Charalambous as the host of Barcroft TV’s car-modification format The Customiser Is Always Right.