Maybe you’ve heard of FOX News’s new show, The 1/2 Hour News Hour (THHNH). (There have been ads on Facebook, and also on FOX, if you’re the type who, like me, watches O’Reilly for kicks from time to time). The latest project of Joel Surnow, the producer of the FOX primetime hit 24, THHNH is billed as a conservative foil to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and as a more lighthearted version of other “news” programming on FOX News.

Most reactions I’ve heard have been to the tune of: “This has got to be a joke.”

For the most part, it is, in that THHNH really sucks. Neither the chintzy graphics nor the obvious laugh track are sufficient to save the poor writing, for various flashy media components does not good televised satire make. [You can see for yourself with this clip. –Ed.]

Satire is amazing because it’s so hard to master. To produce it, you have to really “get it”—that is, fully understand what you trying to satirize. Stewart and Colbert do a great job not because they have a show with bells and whistles, but because they understand both the factual reality on which their satire is based and how to communicate their satire to a receptive audience.

Why, then, would Surnow produce such a lousy show like THHNH?

Jane Mayer from The New Yorker offers a possible explanation, that Surnow’s conservative politics is a dominant factor in his media ventures. Make no mistake about it—while Surnow’s great at his craft in 24, his latest project merely confirms his conservative political leanings.

Apolitical media skeptics should beware: If the show stays afloat, it won’t be because it’s so great (because it isn’t), but because it’s buoyed by loyal FOX News viewers or by conservative dollars to compete against Stewart and Colbert.

“But the show’s so bad!” you might say. “There’s no reason for anything so ridiculously literal and un-satirical to attract anyone’s attention!”

Funny you might think that. Ironically, that the show isn’t satire at all may be its star attraction. The tendency of conservatives to be more literal than progressives may be the consumer-side phenomenon that FOX News is banking on to turn THHNH into a viable show, while couching the show as “satire.” And to them, why not? Leveraging their media institutions to meet their political ends while making a quick buck off it isn’t going to leave them any worse off. And if the assumption that a large conservative audience can be captured is valid, then they can only gain from the investment, financially and politically.

And that’s the punch line.