She took a big leap launching full frontal on TBS, but the bet has paid off for the new queen of late night.
Samantha Bee admits that she was “terrified” as 2016 began. After all, she and husband Jason Jones had left Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, where they’d worked as correspondents for more than a decade, to create not one but two gambles for TBS, which could make or break the network’s ambitious original content overhaul: a new comedy series starring Jones called The Detour, and Bee’s own late-night show, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee.
Turns out she had nothing to fear: both programs became breakout hits and established Bee as the face of the new, edgier and funnier TBS—and an instantly indispensable late-night voice. Full Frontal averages 3.3 million multi platform viewers per episode, while The Detour brought in a weekly audience of 4.4 million (Season 2 debuts early 2017). “We didn’t know what to expect, but we’ve been so fortunate to have so much creative freedom and so much material to work with,” she says. “We’ve had the greatest year: it’s been so much fun, so much stress, so much pressure and so much excitement. It’s been everything.”
This story is from the November 28, 2016 edition of ADWEEK.
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This story is from the November 28, 2016 edition of ADWEEK.
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