Roy Wood Jr. doesn’t sound like Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper or Erin Burnett. And yet, his importance to CNN could start approaching that of those popular anchors.
Wood isn’t at CNN to deliver the news. His hosting duties at “Have I Got News For You,” a comedic panel show that analyzes and laughs at some of the biggest events of the week — as well as some of the silliest — has him doing that, anyway. Of a sort.
During one recent — and raucous — Friday-night taping, Wood tilted back and forth with his two regular panelists. Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black, as well as two guests, comic Hasan Minhaj and Senator Adam Schiff. The group considered everything from recent behavior by Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina to content in the Epstein Files. Some of the segments come in the form of games, and elements of the program might remind viewers of a combination of “The Daily Show” and “After Midnight.”
While the show offers up a lot of laughs and silliness, it’s the sort of thing where if you aren’t careful, you just might learn something before it all comes to an end.
Other CNN shows can grill newsmakers and experts, says Wood. “Have I Got News For You,” which is in its fourth cycle of running on ten Saturdays, offers something different — a “release” from the headlines. “We like to have on people who may not know s–t. Because that also matches the American voter to some degree,” he says while preparing for a recent show’s taping. “You don’t have to know everything about everything, but you know good versus bad. You know right from wrong. And if you know that, then I feel like we have a show that’s probably the most relatable. And you’re most likely to see someone who looks and even feels like you. I mean, we’re probably the closest thing you could get to, say, the man on the street.”
CNN is betting on the appeal of “Have I Got News For You” — and, potentially, other programs that examine news and current events through a alternate lens. “It’s sort of a natural thing that you would cover stories all week and do the tough stuff that we have to do,” says Amy Entelis, CNN’s executive vice president for talent, CNN Originals and creative development. But viewers are also ready, she says, for the network “to show our ability to step back and look at things from an entirely different angle.”
Increasingly, it’s a comic one. CNN has over the years tapped comics like W. Kamau Bell to lead an original series about American subcultures or enlisted D.L. Hughley to try this band a a Saturday-night program. There have in recent years been documentaries about TV comedy across the decades, and about single subjects including Gilda Radner and, in January, Chevy Chase. Both Fred Armisen, the former ”SNL” cast member and Craig Ferguson the former host of “The Late Late Show,” will both lead new CNN original series.
“CNN’s foray into comedy-news is part of a bigger pivot to entertainment content by formerly ‘serious’ outlets to try to both stay afloat in linear and generate social media hits, especially with the dreariness of news under Trump 2,” says Nick Marx, a professor of film and media studies at Colorado State University who studies the cultural implications of comedy programs. CNN may have also noticed some of Fox News Channel’s recent weekend efforts with comedy content, he says, including shows from Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld and Jimmy Failia.
CNN’s Saturday night schedule is where to find the laughs. Repeats of Bill Maher’s HBO show “Real Time” kick off the primetime schedule and are often followed by the program executives call “HIGNFY.” Viewership has spiked for the series’ fourth season, in some weeks growing the audience from “Real Time.” The season debut on January 31 lured an average of nearly 1.04 million, its biggest audience since the series debuted in 2024 and a doubling of its audience from the third-season premiere. The fourth season debut beat other cable-news outlets among viewers between 25 and 54, the demographic coveted most by advertisers in news programs.
CNN is helped by the fact that “Have I Got News For You” isn’t exactly an unknown property. The show has run in the U.K. since 1990, and is a TV staple in that nation. So much so that U.S. TV executives have tried on at least four different occasions to launch the show for American audiences, according to Jim Biederman, the program’s executive producer, who spent time developing TV programs with Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video.
“I’ve done pilots of it over 20 years,” he says, recalling efforts to get the series on NBC, Bravo, TBS and ABC. “Each time we did it, we got a little bit more American.” CNN, with multiple news shows featuring panels or roundtables, offers a natural habitat for the show, he suggests. “CNN is a network that kind of has panel shows in its DNA,” he says, which means “HIGNFY” is “not so foreign that you’re talking a different language to your network.”
Wood believes the show has broader appeal than many of its late-night contemporaries. “The true measurement of whether or not you’re reaching people is blue collar,” he says. “. “Because that guy doesn’t have a lot of time to watch TV.” When he started hearing remarks about the program from baggage handlers and sanitation workers in the Midwest and New York he says, “that’s when I really started feeling like we had found some degree of a stride.”
“Have I Got News For You” isn’t put together like other programs. While it’s only an hour on CNN, the tapings can last more than two, because producers like to give the assemblage room to find a real conversation. Biederman and Jodi Lennon, the show’s co-executive producer, often spend hours on Friday nights and Saturdays editing the proceedings into something that shows off the panel’s ability to come together in real time. “There’s no script. you know, it’s just kind of playing along in this kind of improvised moment,” says Biederman.
Part of the appeal is found in Wood’s teammates. Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black offer a sort of sweet-and-sour mix. Ruffin, who many people know form her appearances on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” sometimes plays innocent, as if she hasn’t read any news for weeks, only to surprise the audience with a hilarious remark in the end. Black, meanwhile, seems as if he’ s read every story on every subject.
“I’m annoying. That’s my role. My role is to be annoying. Amber’s role is to be funny and delightful,” says Black. “We’re very rowdy, and I think we’re rowdier than what they bargain for, but it turns out it’s fun,” says Ruffin.
Now that the program has been able to book members of Congress, there’s hope for other luminaries. Wood would love to get sports figures to visit the show. “There’s a lot of athletes that are a lot smarter than you presume them to be. Many of them might not even come on the show yet, because they still have brands to protect,” he says. “But when you look at the influx of athlete led podcasts, they all like to run their mouths.”
All the participants are surprised that CNN hasn’t been more heavy-handed with the program. “We’ve been sequestered from the rest of the CNN, which I think is for the best. For both parties,” says Black. “They don’t want clowns running up and down their hallways squirting seltzer bottles. And I think we would like to avoid this sort of serious newsy vibe that’s going on over there.”
That separation can be a good thing. “This becomes the show that has an opportunity to stand out because it’s on the news network,” says Wood. “We’re not like anything else.”