cancellations

The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore Canceled by Comedy Central

Wilmore. Photo: Bryan Bedder/2016 Getty Images

The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore has been canceled after two seasons, Comedy Central has announced. Wilmore’s final late-night broadcast will air on August 18, while Chris Hardwick’s game show @Midnight will be switched to 11:30 p.m. as a temporary replacement (though the show’s name won’t change). The Nightly Show debuted in January 2015 in The Colbert Report’s slot, but has continuously suffered from poor ratings. Despite having previously renewed the show to run through the presidential election, Comedy Central president Kent Alterman now says that the show “hasn’t connected with our audience in ways that we need it to.” It appears the news came as a shock to Wilmore who, referencing one of his segments, likened the cancellation to the “unblackening” of Comedy Central: “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,” Wilmore said in a statement. Wilmore, along with The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, was one of the only black hosts in late-night TV.

The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore Canceled