Comedy Central Cancels Chris Hardwick's "@midnight"

[JamesG]

"@midnight with Chris Hardwick" To End Comedy Central Run after 600 Episodes
by Nellie Andreeva
July 18, 2017


After four seasons, 600 shows and two Emmy Awards, "@midnight with Chris Hardwick" will be coming to an end. Hardwick just broke the news to his staff.

"@midnight’s" final week will kick off July 31, culminating with the series finale on Friday, August 4 when the show will hit the 600-episode milestone.





The decision to end "@midnight" was made mutually by Comedy Central, host/executive producer Hardwick and production company Funny Or Die.

“We took a big macro look and we started having conversations with Chris,” Comedy Central president Kent Alterman said in an interview with Deadline. “We feel incredibly proud of the show, we think it’s had an amazing run. How many shows can say that they’d hit 600 episodes? It was a little bit of the audience telling us over time, and we mutually thought, ‘You know what, maybe we should walk away holding our heads high and proud, full of appreciation and gratitude’.”





What Alterman is likely referring to is the fact that, after a ratings bump following "@midnight‘s" move from 12 AM to 11:30 PM last August, the show’s numbers have plateaued, while its lead-in, "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah", has been trending up.

But "@midnight" has been pretty consistent, averaging between 400,000-490,000 total viewers and between 250,000-300,000 adults 18-49 in each quarter the past two years. Additionally, "@midnight" has been the youngest and most male-skewing late-night show for most of its run, currently ranking second in lowest median age only behind Viceland newcomer "Desus & Mero".

There are no immediate plans for a new Comedy Central weeknight show to air at 12 AM, though I hear that if renewed beyond Labor Day, "The President Show", which currently airs at 11:30 PM Thursday, would be a contender for the midnight spot once a week after the "Daily Show" spin-off starring Jordan Klepper launches in the fall, taking over the 11:30 PM time period Monday-Thursday.





Hardwick indicated he and his fellow "@midnight" producers felt it was time for the show to end.

“@midnight has meant the world to me these last four years,” he said in a statement to Deadline. “It has been a dream to come to work 600 times to make inappropriate jokes about the Internet with my fellow comedian friends. I could not be more proud of this show, staff and crew and at the end of the day, I think we accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish. Spiritually it just feels like it ran its course — I’m not sure we had many more hashtag games in us (which may actually be a relief to anyone whose Twitter feed gets overrun every night).”

“I owe such a huge debt of gratitude to Comedy Central and Kent for taking a chance on the show, always being great partners and allowing us to exit mutually, which is rarely a gift you are given in this business. I will certainly miss awarding POINTS! to people nightly, so please understand if you see me randomly shouting it at strangers in public after August 4th.”

http://deadline.com/2017/07/midnight...ns-1202130613/

[robyrob]

seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot again - it is a proven ratings performer and most of their other current shows are either getting way too old and stale (I still watch Tosh.0, but nothing he does now hasn't been done before; it's lost its shock value), or are new and just garbage (President Show, Daily Show with Trevor Noah, any other show they air, including that new spinoff that hasn't even premiered yet).

I don't know if they are doing a roast this year - but after the last couple of sycophantic love-fests, who cares anymore? This whole channel has completely gone to crap.

[TMC]

‘@Midnight’ Promoted Stand-Up Comedy Like No One Else In The Era Of Peak TV