On Monday, Comedy Central announced it was canceling The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore, which had started as a replacement to The Colbert Report but struggled to gain its own sizable audience. Although on the plus side, I must say, our show going off the air has to only mean one thing: racism is solved.
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The announcement came as a surprise Monday with the network cutting loose the politically conscious show a few months before the presidential election.
“When we started the show, we wanted to have a conversation of some very tough subjects”, Wilmore continued.
As Wilmore continued on with Monday’s show, he remarked fondly on numerous show’s segments, including the “final pointless episode” of “Pardon the Integration”. “Really our show was at its best when the news was at its worst”.
“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 said in the statement.
But audience acceptance of “The Nightly Show” never approached its “Daily Show” lead-in, neither during the regime of Jon Stewart nor that of his successor, Trevor Noah, who took over last September. “But I’m also saddened and surprised we won’t be covering this insane election, or “The Unblackening, ‘ as we’ve coined it”.
Larry Wilmore wasted no time addressing the big elephant in the room on Monday’s Nightly Show. And though The Nightly Show may have had low ratings overall, it was both a unique voice for people of color, and a unique experiment with its round-table approach rather than the celebrity interviews that make up act two of most late night shows.
As for Wilmore’s network, Comedy Central, where does it stand now?
“The Daily Show” Says Goodbye to Correspondent Jessica Williams – Watch the Sweet Video!
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However, Mr. Fienberg says that breaking up what is now the most diverse late-night lineup doesn’t look good. “And keeping it 100, I guess I hadn’t counted on “The Unblackening” happening to my time slot as well”.
