Comedy Central Axing Larry Wilmore’s The Nightly Show
This afternoon news has broken that this will be the final week for Larry Wilmore and The Nightly Show on Comedy Central.
Comedy Central president Kent Alterman said the decision was made because “Nightly” had failed to gain ratings traction with the cabler’s core demo of young adults, nor were there positive signs for the show in key social media metrics. Alterman made a point of praising Wilmore and the distinctive approach he brought to commenting on the day’s news.
“We’ve been monitoring it closely as for a year and a half now and we haven’t seen the signs we need in ratings or in consumption on digital platforms. We’ve been been hoping it would grow,” Alterman said.
That last bit about digital platforms is likely one of the keys to this decision. Simply put, the show has not produced the kind of “viral video” that has become essential for late night television in an age when the all-important youth demographic is cutting the cable cord in ever growing numbers.
The host was gracious but did not hide his disappointment:
“I’m really grateful to Comedy Central, Jon Stewart, and our fans to have had this opportunity,” Wilmore said in a statement. “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.”
Clearly, the biggest problem for the show was losing Jon Stewart as a lead-in. Trevor Noah’s version of The Daily Show lost much of Stewart’s audience while generating hundreds of unfavorable comparisons to the weekly shows currently hosted by Daily Show alumni John Oliver and Samantha Bee. Noah’s numbers have improved in recent months, but this has not impacted The Nightly Show’s viewership.
Beyond that, The Nightly Show never fully resolved its identity crisis. It began as something of a panel show in the mold of Bill Maher’s programs, but booking four conversational guests four nights per week proved problematic. Instead the show became more and more focused on its own repertory company. The panel discussion was limited to a single segment and included one guest. When the same cast that bored me for the first two segments dominated the panel discussion to the point where an interesting guest had difficulty getting in a word edgewise, I stopped watching.
Variety reports that @Midnight with Chris Hardwick will shift into the 11:30 p.m. timeslot for the time being. The same article also reports the network is developing a project with Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper that has the potential to find its way into the lineup. This would seem to be a major blow to The Daily Show on the heels of Jessica Williams departure earlier this summer.