Comedy Central has given Larry Wilmore the ax by canceling his well-respected late night show.

The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, which replaced The Colbert Report in 2015, will end after Thursday night’s episode.

Comedy Central president Kent Alterman said the decision was made because Nightly failed to gain ratings traction with the cable network’s core demo of young adults, nor were there positive signs for the show in key social media metrics.

He told Variety, “We hold Larry in the highest esteem, personally and professionally. He brought a strong voice and point of view to the late-night landscape. Unfortunately it hasn’t resonated with our audience.”

He added, “We’ve been monitoring it closely as for a year and a half now and we haven’t seen the signs we need in ratings or in consumption on digital platforms. We’ve been been hoping it would grow. The next step is to open our doors to aggressive development in late night.”

Wilmore expressed his disappointment in a statement:

“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.”

The funny man’s focus will now be on his work as co-creator and exec producer alongside Issa Rae for the upcoming HBO comedy Insecure. His hilarious POV will definitely be missed on late night TV.

SOURCE: Variety | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty 

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