CNN Adds Bill Maher’s “Overtime” to Friday Night Lineup

Bill Maher is coming to CNN.

The host of HBO’s weekly late night series Real time will bring his Over time segments to the cable news channel starting Friday, February 3.

Over time airs Friday nights at 11:30 PM on CNN, following new episodes of Real time debut on HBO Friday at 10 p.m

Maher produced Over time segments for years. An offshoot of the HBO show, the segments feature Maher and his panel of guests continuing to discuss news-related topics. The segment was previously only streamed online. With the CNN deal, it now also gets basic linear cable in the house.

Maher’s move is also another example of Warner Bros. Discovery looking for ways to share programming even as it continues to cut costs. Some of CNN’s programming has already made its way to HBO Max and Discovery+, while CNN has hosted guests from other parts of the corporate empire (such as Chef Bobby Flay, who talked about inflation and rising food costs in a live segment).

And while Maher is not a journalist, Over time also gives CNN a foot in the door to a genre of programming that isn’t entirely new, but isn’t quite comedy either, suggesting that CNN is open to shows outside of the “anchor at the desk” or “correspondent in the field” format. For example, at Fox News, two of the most popular shows were the afternoon panel show The five and the late night comedy show Gutfeld.

And while Over time is more of a comedy show than a news show, it won’t really come into any meaningful competition with the other late night shows (including Chris Licht’s Last TV Home of CNN CEO Chris Licht as CBS’ Executive Producer Show up late). With Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel almost always running reruns on Friday nights, there might be an opening for something original at 11:30pm