In his first three months as host of the Nightly Show, Comedy Central’s Larry Wilmore has seen his audience down nearly 40% compared to the Colbert Report which occupied the same 11:30 p.m. time slot.
Per Mediaite:
According to Nielsen ratings data, in the three months since The Nightly Show‘s debut on Jan. 19, the show has averaged 417k viewers in the late-night key demo of 18-to-49-year-olds. During that same exact time period, in 2014, The Colbert Report averaged 683k demo viewers. That’s a 39% decline for Comedy Central.
Similarly, in the 25-54 demo, The Nightly Show is down 37% from Colbert’s 577k viewers. And in total viewership for the three-month period, year-over-year, Wilmore is down 38% from Colbert’s 1.24 million.
Given the controversial comments made by Wilmore on a nightly basis, one shouldn’t be surprised that viewers are turning away from the Comedy Central host. On his first night on the air in January, Wilmore devoted his entire show to race and even wondered if African Americans were “just a hoodie away from being face down on the pavement?”
Since his debut, Wilmore has had no shortage of problematic incidents and we at NewsBusters have compiled some of his worst moments that might help explain why his ratings are so bad.
• Wilmore called Ted Cruz’s presidential bid “Blacklash at its finest”
• Accused creationists like Ted Cruz of not deserving or respecting the presidency
• Joked about “CrossFit” Jesus
• Hosted former Labor Secretary Robert Reich who blamed the media for “making” ISIS into a “big deal”
Unfortunately for Comedy Central, Larry Wilmore is not the only late night host causing the network problems. Trevor Noah, who is set to replace Jon Stewart as host of the Daily Show later this year has gotten himself in trouble for joking that the United States was worse than apartheid in South Africa and for making anti-Semitic jokes on Twitter.
One wonders how long Comedy Central will stick to their struggling far-left host as he continues to bleed viewers on a daily basis or if they decide to drop him sooner rather than later.
