For the first time since 2008, Comedy Central won’t have two political comedy shows to cover the U.S. Presidential election. Earlier today, the network made the decision to abruptly cancel The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.
The Hollywood Reporter was one of the first outlets with the news, and it notes that Wilmore informed his writing staff this morning. The Nightly Show will air new episodes through the end of the week before ending its run after two seasons. In its place, Comedy Central is moving Chris Hardwick’s @midnight to the 11:30pm timeslot after The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
In a statement to THR, Wilmore said “I’m really grateful to Comedy Central, Jon Stewart, and our fans to have had this opportunity…But I’m also saddened and surprised we won’t be covering this crazy election or ‘The Unblackening’ as we’ve coined it. And keeping it 100, I guess I hadn’t counted on ‘The Unblackening’ happening to my time slot as well.”
Related: ‘The Daily Show’ Interviews Canada’s Prime Minister
The Nightly Show‘s cancellation leaves a very big hole in Comedy Central’s coverage plans for the 2016 Presidential elections. That’s been a tradition for the network going back to the 2000 election. According to THR, Comedy Central pulled the plug now because The Nightly Show wasn’t gaining much traction with viewers and it was averaging just 0.2 in the highly coveted 18-49 demographic.
As for why Comedy Central didn’t give the show a few more months, it was apparently down to contract renewals that were coming up soon. If the network had renewed the contracts, Wilmore, and his staff would have been back for another season, and Comedy Central was already prepared to cut its losses.
Comedy Central will likely try to create another companion series for The Daily Show, but it won’t happen this year. This will also probably be the end of Wilmore’s decade-long tenure with the network.
How do you feel about the end of The Nightly Show? Let us know in the comment section below!
