Bryan Bedder/Comedy Central(NEW YORK) — Larry Wilmore’s The Nightly Show has been axed by Comedy Central, ABC News has confirmed.
In a statement, Comedy Central said, “We thank Larry and The Nightly Show staff for their tireless efforts across the past two years and the conversations the show generated by addressing social issues of great importance to the country, always challenging people’s attitudes, perceptions and bias.”
In the end, however, it came down to the show’s poor ratings.
Despite much media coverage, and Wilmore’s hosting the White House Correspondents Dinner in April, the show, “hasn’t seemed to connect with our audience,” Comedy Central’s president Kent Alterman tells The Wrap. He called that, “disconcerting and disappointing to us.”
“When we took a hard look — especially after the conventions, where we also didn’t see any traction we were hoping for — we didn’t have enough evidence to justify committing to another year,” the executive added.
In a statement, Wilmore expressed gratitude to the network, Jon Stewart, and the Nightly Show fans, but added, he was, “…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.”
The last episode of The Nightly Show, which debuted in the time slot formerly held by The Colbert Report, will air Thursday night.
To cover the time slot, the Chris Hardwick-hosted comedy game show @Midnight will be bumped to 11:30 p.m. until a replacement nightly show is up and running.
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