Comedy Central Hopes to Get First Laugh on State of the Union

To Comedy Central, tonight’s State of the Union address may not be a joke, but it is a good opportunity to tell a few.

The year-old cable network is joining ABC, C-SPAN, Cable News Network, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS in airing what President Bush’s chief speech writer has called “the biggest speech of the next five years.”

But, while the other networks will wait to offer comment until after President Bush concludes, Comedy Central will have a panel of commentators giving opinions as the address is going on. The lineup includes host Paul Provenza, moderator Billy Kimball, Richard Belzer and Al Franken, “Saturday Night Live” writer Marilyn Suzanne Miller, Spy magazine contributing editor Joe Queenan and NBC sportscaster and late-night talk show host Bob Costas.

Comedy Central boasted in radio commercials for the broadcast that the notion of cracking jokes before the President has even finished is “irreverent (and) disrespectful.”

It’s all part of the channel’s quest to be more topical, according to Steven Paul Mark, its senior vice president for legal and business affairs.

“Our intention is not to bash the President or necessarily go after him,” Mark said. “If there’s humor in the speech, we think our guys are going to pick it up.”

Mark expects his panelists to speak over the natural breaks in the address.

“We’ve studied past State of the Union speeches and come up with (an average) of 32 breaks for applause, ranging from a few seconds to a minute,” Mark said. “Those are perfect situations where there can be comment. We’re not telling our commentators to say or not say anything or when they can say it. We want them to be consistent with our standards and practices, but that would be true of any television show.”

As a basic-cable network, Comedy Central has the same language standards as the major broadcast networks, Mark said. Comedy Central also plans to use on-screen graphics to comment during germane moments of the speech.

Unlike the Nixon Administration, where Vice President Spiro T. Agnew railed against “instant analysis and querulous criticism” of presidential speeches from a “small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts,” the Bush Administration is taking a less critical view of Comedy Central’s plans.

“That’s a matter for the networks and I’ll leave it to them,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater told reporters Friday.

The networks nearly blocked Comedy Central from showing the State of the Union at all, withdrawing permission for it to receive the pool satellite feed last Thursday afternoon.

On Friday, Comedy Central planned to file an injunction to receive credentials from the House Television and Radio Gallery, which would have allowed it to be part of the satellite feed, and to sue CNN, which administers the pool, for breach of contract.

But by a 2-1 vote with one abstention, the pool decided to allow Comedy Central to be part of the feed.

Ben Griffin, a Washington lawyer for Comedy Central, told a reporter that CBS and NBC voted in favor of Comedy Central, ABC against, and CNN abstained.

“ABC News regrets the network pool decision,” ABC’s Washington bureau chief, George Watson, told the Associated Press. “We do not believe that the pool has any legal responsibility to provide news to non-news organizations. Doing so, particularly in this case, violates professional standards we respect.”

Said Mark: “We felt we had a very valid First Amendment position. We’re really surprised we were being resisted by the news organizations. They are the first ones to look to the First Amendment to assert their rights, and legitimately so, and we felt we were doing the same thing.”

Comedy Central hopes to follow tonight’s broadcast, which is titled “State of the Union--Undressed,” by covering the presidential campaign “in our special way,” Mark said. And if Capitol Hill produces another hearing akin to the verbal cross-fire between then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and law professor Anita F. Hill, Comedy Central would like to air that too.