So, 2010, a miserable year that has given us David Cameron and the vajazzle, ends with the news that The Daily Show, my favourite TV programme, is being taken off the air. More4 has announced it would no longer broadcast it every night; instead, it would run a weekly round-up edition.

It is a joke that would probably amuse the show's host, Jon Stewart: a programme with "daily" in the title is being broadcast weekly. I would laugh if I wasn't feeling so sad. I am a man of ritual. During the last five years, my life has seen plenty of changes – I have moved home, written a book and got married – but one ritual I have maintained is every evening I have stopped to watch The Daily Show "with Jon Stewart".

Although in the United States it is broadcast on the Comedy Central network, The Daily Show is essential viewing not just because it is funny but because it often does journalism better than the mainstream news media it so effectively skewers. The show brilliantly dismantles the absurdity of 24-hour rolling news. It has also thrown a spotlight on, among other targets, the unprincipled nature of Republican opposition to President Obama and the president's own failure to live up to liberal expectations.

And in Jon Stewart The Daily Show has an anchor who has become a figurehead for those in the reasonable centre whose opinions are often drowned out in the polarised world of Fox and MSNBC. I find it bewildering that More4, where you are never more than 30 minutes from property porn, wants to ditch a show with such a strong international reputation. President Obama, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have all appeared, a sign of how important it is to the political classes. Last week, a bill to help emergency workers first on the scene on 9/11 was passed through Congress directly as a result of the attention that The Daily Show had given to the issue.

It is true The Daily Show is not perfect: audiences drooling over every word Stewart says can get tiresome and while the show may be great for US political obsessives like me, its focus on domestic American politics is not necessarily likely to appeal to most British viewers. The justification More4 gives is that The Daily Show only attracts an audience of around 80,000 – the audience might be small but it is devoted.

I assumed that the departure of The Daily Show from the schedules would mean that, at long last, television viewers would get a chance to see more of Come Dine With Me, Location, Location, Location and Grand Designs, shows that could do with a re-airing or two. In fact, More4 promises greater investment in the documentary strand True Stories. It is also launching a new British satire show with Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell, Jimmy Carr and Lauren Laverne. The new programme will be called The 10 O'Clock Show; given More4's inventive interpretation of titles, it is likely to be shown at 2.30.

None of which makes me any less despondent about a 2011 without The Daily Show. I know that I could watch the programme on a computer; call me old-fashioned but I quite like watching television programmes on the television. That is why I am desperately hoping that some other broadcaster will swoop in and save The Daily Show. It's hard to imagine 2011 without it.

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