Brian Sack Talks About His New Show, Working For GBTV, And The Difference Between Anchors And Chickens

Ah, the Half Hour News Hour. Well, I suppose you guys are already off to a good start by hiring a comedy guy as a showrunner instead of being run by the creator of 24.

On Beck’s radio show, you were joking about your premiere following a less-than-hilarious Holocaust movie and that kind of strong tonal shift is something I noticed when you were doing the last segment on Beck’s show the past few months. Interestingly though, it seems that that’s kind of what your show is here to do. Beck made it clear that he wants this to be a legitimate network with many different focuses and what better way to prove that with a completely unrelated comedy show. Is there any pressure to that? I mean, everyone at GBTV is working without precedent really and this seems like it’ll be a fairly important test to prove that this won’t just be “Glenn Beck 24/7.”

It can’t be Glenn Beck 24/7. Glenn Beck 2/5 is plenty. They want to expand their programming and there will be a time when they have subscribers who are there for something else that the network offers. The measure of success for us will be if people sign up specifically because they want to see our show. They want to provide people with multiple reasons to watch. I remember being very surprised at one of the programs they told me they were working to get the rights to – it made me realize that they are serious about it being a network with a range of programming. I’m pitching a reality show where we take the cast of the Jersey Shore and send them off the coast of Somalia in a sailboat with a weak mast.

I know Glenn’s serious about our show being its own thing. We originally had a run at the end of his daily show. It was tough. 110 minutes of Glenn Beck and then our ten minutes. It was essentially: Ahmadinejad! Meltdown! Riots! Soros! Sunset of the American Empire!… And now some comedy. After a week and a half of that Glenn came in to our office and said, “I’m doing you guys a great disservice. You need to be your own show as soon as possible.”

It definitely won’t be a Glenn Beck comedy show because his involvement is minimal – unless we’ve begged him to be in a sketch. From the beginning he’s told us we’re on our own, we have total creative control, we can do what we want and he won’t get in our way. Jack, the showrunner, keeps reminding me that an opportunity like this will never, ever, ever, ever happen again in our lives. That’s one of the great joys of a fledgling network – there’s no hierarchy telling people what they can or can’t do. There’s no “that’s the way we do things here” mentality because we’ve never done anything here. They keep hiring people from other established networks who are amazed at what they’re allowed to do. It’s the difference between caged hens and free-range, except eating us is illegal.

The B.S. of A. premieres tonight at 7pm ET on GBTV. Watch some video clips below: