What Will It Take to Save Comedy Central?

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What Will it Take to Save Comedy Central?

08.16.2016

Comedy Central's cancellation of The Nightly Show is the latest in a series of signals that all is not well at the network that was once the home of the country's sharpest political satire and news commentary.

On Monday, Comedy Central announced that it was cancelling the show, which took Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report time slot in February 2015 when Colbert moved over to CBS' The Late Show. The move was not surprising considering the ratings: The Nightly Show is averaging a barely-there 0.2 among its key demographic of adults 18-49.

RELATED: Comedy Central Cancels 'The Nightly Show'

But The Nightly Show's failure to catch on is not the only problem at Comedy Central. Consider its late-night partner, The Daily Show, long the network's marquee program with host Jon Stewart. Stewart left the show just over a year ago and was replaced with South African comic Trevor Noah, who was hand-picked by Stewart.

But despite Comedy Central's best efforts to reassure the media and audiences that Noah would eventually catch on, so far he hasn't. In May, The Wrap reported that The Daily Show had lost 38% of Stewart's audience among millennials aged 18-34 and 35% in households. And that comes at a time when the country is in the middle of a presidential election that lends itself extremely well to satire.

It's also proven to be a mistake to let so much of its talent walk out the door, with Stephen Colbert going to CBS, John Oliver to HBO and Samantha Bee to TBS, taking much of Comedy Central's brand equity with them.

Outside of late-night, Comedy Central also has issues. Key and Peele wrapped up their popular sketch show, and Inside Amy Schumer is only expected to last one more year. Broad City is a bright spot, but most of the network's other shows haven't broken through the clutter.

That its ratings are down is not lost on the network. In May, Kent Alterman was promoted from president of programming to president of the network, and then-president Michele Ganeless was shown the door.

RELATED: Kent Alterman Replaces Michele Ganeless at Comedy Central

Alterman will launch an ambitious slate of new programming, including 21 new scripted shows and 15 new specials. Among the talent planning to make appearances on the network are Kevin Hart, Jeff Ross, Will Ferrell and his producing partner Adam McKay. Alterman also signed two of The Daily Show's newer correspondents, Jessica Williams and Jordan Kleppner, to development and series deals.

RELATED: Comedy Central Announces 5 Series Pick-Ups, 10 Specials, 11 Pilot Orders at Upfronts

As Alterman told Deadline last March: "Given the choice for people to use The Daily Show as a platform to go to other places or stay at Comedy Central, I prefer the latter."

Now's the time to make that preference stick.