As Comedy Central Finally Solidifies Late Night, It’s Working on Resuscitating Its Ratings

Two years ago, when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert departed Comedy Central within eight months of each other, it sent the network into a tailspin that it's just beginning to recover from. Kent Alterman, who took over as network president in May 2016, has been working to fill Comedy Central’s late-night hole and find a suitable companion to The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. On Sept. 25, he’ll launch The Opposition With Jordan Klepper, where the former Daily Show correspondent will spoof alternative-media outlets like Infowars. While Noah has found his groove—August was the show’s most-watched month ever among total viewers (1.6 million in live-plus-3) and the 11th consecutive month of year-over-year gains, as it passed The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to become the No. 1 daily, late-night talk show among adults 18-34—the network has continued to struggle elsewhere. Its year-to-date prime-time ratings in live-plus-7 are down 20 percent in total viewers, according to Nielsen, while its 18-49 and 18-34 demo ratings have each slipped from a 0.3 to a 0.2 rating. However, as Comedy Central's hits South Park and Broad City return tonight, and The Opposition joins the lineup in two weeks, Alterman is optimistic about the network’s future. He sat down with Adweek to talk about turning around late night, the network’s new scheduling approach and when Inside Amy Schumer might return. Adweek: When you took over the network last year, what was your top priority, late night? Kent Alterman: We definitely had a very specific focus in late night, and we feel like the last decade we really had a powerful hour in the form of Jon and Stephen. When we launched Trevor, we launched with total belief in him but also an understanding that it was going to take a while for Trevor to find his voice and grow into that role, just as it took [Stewart] a while. I always tell people it’s totally fair to compare the two, as long as you compare Trevor’s beginning to Jon’s beginning. And the thing with Trevor was we didn’t hire him for his experience—we hired him for his talent and his brain. So we knew it would take a while. When did you feel that Trevor was starting to find his way? We really started feeling a difference around the conventions last summer. Trevor was finding his voice, his point of view. It didn’t feel like he was an outsider, just standing outside of it and commenting. Even though he had spent a lot of time touring in the States and had been living in the States, now he’s been creating a show on a day-to-day basis in the United States during an insane political campaign and absorbing it in a way that you can’t duplicate except by living it. He was really more immersed in it and became more of an audience surrogate in experiencing it and reflecting back and commenting. And he got more comfortable with the machine that he had stepped into, and he started figuring out ways to make it his own in terms of process and how he engaged with the writing staff. What’s the most gratifying is that since then, it feels like he keeps hitting new plateaus. He gets stronger and stronger, and everywhere we look, we see affirmation of that. [UPDATE: On Thursday, Comedy Central announced that Alterman had extended Noah's contract through 2022.] What was your approach to settling on your 11:30 show? We feel that … 11:30 works best when it actually is in sync with 11, something that makes organic sense. And the good news there is that Jordan really emerged, especially during the campaign and through the election, with a strong voice and point of view. Trevor agreed—and he’s an [executive producer] on Jordan’s show—and we started discussions with Trevor and Jordan that evolved to us having the total faith and confidence in committing to Jordan developing the 11:30 show. When you signed Jordan for the 11:30 p.m. show, did you know at the time what it would be, or were you just betting on him? We were talking in principle, but it wasn’t fully executed. And that’s the good news: You want someone who’s so smart and talented that you want them to start absorbing what’s going on in the world and ascertain what’s the opportunity and how does that intersect with their own talent? That’s what we have with Jordan and The Opposition. This show could not have existed a year ago, and that’s what’s exciting. He’s looking at where the world is now and what’s the comedy that he can mine from it that serves the character he’s creating. [kickout id="1"] In February, when Viacom CEO Bob Bakish unveiled his “flagship six” approach to restructuring Viacom, did that change your vision for Comedy Central at all? There are two significant things. One, by every measure of looking at our brand strength, what it stands for and how our audience sees it and connects with it, it’s never been stronger. We take certain comfort in that. Then when Bob has the “flagship six” strategy and we’re part of it, we take a certain amount of security and comfort in that as well, knowing that we’re going to have resources that keep pushing our brand and extending it. Bob wants all of the “flagship six” networks to contribute to Paramount’s film slate. What are your plans for bringing the Comedy Central brand to theaters? It could go in any number of ways. The brand is so strong and means so much that there’s a certain credibility that comes with it that I think why limit it to only linear and digital platforms. Why not feature films? Also, in the last several years, we had developed and launched shows with Amy Schumer, Key & Peele, [Broad City’s] Abbi [Jacobson] and Ilana [Glazer]. And there was not a structure, mandate or even encouragement in place for us to be working with our corporate brethren at Paramount. When I first started talking to Bob, I talked about that. Why should Amy Schumer’s first movie be at Universal, and Key & Peele have movies set up at different studios? Why are we not tapping into it? And he really took that to heart. So Brian Robbins was just named to head up that division at Paramount that will be responsible for working with the brands to create the branded films. I’ve just started meeting with Brian, and we’re excited to start exploring where the opportunities are that make sense. Trevor has had some ratings momentum, but you’ve had challenges beyond that. What was the thinking behind pairing up two of your highest-rated shows this fall, Broad City and South Park, instead of airing them separately to spread out those ratings bumps? We brought in a new general manager, Tanya Giles, in the spring and she has a background in research—but not just data, a much more evolved, elevated approach, where it’s really about where research connects the viewers and their behavior and attitudes. She really spearheaded looking at our schedule in a [new way] and to clarify the schedule through various dayparts. So we really cleaned up the daytime schedule. Within a few weeks, there was a 14 percent jump in [18-49] ratings in daytime. We started applying that across the board, realizing that if we simplify scheduling and try to make it more organic to viewers, that it actually could have implications in various dayparts. So even in prime time, we look at Wednesday nights as being the signature sketch and scripted shows that really weigh more into life experience and friendship, and Tuesday nights are more the presentational, formatted shows like Tosh. We really committed to that, and feel like that there’s great opportunity to bolster ratings. [kickout id="2"] You mentioned Amy Schumer. Comedy Central signed her for another season of Inside Amy Schumer, but there’s been no news about when that might air. When will it go back into production? I liken it to the relationship that FX evolved with Louis [C.K.] and HBO has with Larry David. We have an agreement in place, and we’re standing by if and when she wants to jump into more. But we’re not pressuring her, and she’s been really focused on her film career. Comedy Central has been involved in a number of interesting brand partnerships. Are you looking to expand that? We are always exploring those possibilities. The ones that really work for us are the brands where there’s a certain adventurousness with stepping into comedy. The good news is that the kind of comedy that we do connects with our audience in a very intense, passionate way. You don’t want to water that down, but you want it to make sense. We try to not impose it in a way that is detrimental to either a show or a brand. Where the opportunities are there that it makes sense, we’ve had great success, and then beget and foster new opportunities. The 18-34 audience you’re trying to reach is one that seems to be retreating from linear TV. You talked about The Daily Show’s growth, but what’s your approach to getting this elusive demo back to watching linear TV? The most important thing is to develop and create content with talent that connects with an audience. The thing we try to stay most focused on is having content. We’ve taken advantage of the new landscape and expanded our ability to connect with audience on multiple digital and social platforms. That has also functioned as a new development pipeline for us. We’ve taken more shots with more emerging talent. Broad City started as a digital short series and This is Not Happening, Workaholics and Drunk History started that way. We try to just keep our eye on the ball of creating great content with talent who have a really strong point of view and something to say. And we help them figure out what’s the best vehicle that’s the most effective way of them expressing their voice. Now that you’ve solidified late night, what do you focus on next? I don’t know. We try not to be too myopic and do one thing at the expense of everything else. So we’ve been continuing to develop prime time as we’ve been focusing on late night. We have Season 2 of Detroiters coming back next year, which we’re really excited about. We feel like that has so much potential to keep growing and evolving. We’re launching a new show called Corporate next year that we’re super excited about, and we’re in the midst of various stages of production and postproduction on four new scripted pilots. We never take our eye off of any one area while we’re focusing on other ones. So where we are in a year from now? We’ll see. Hopefully we’ve been doing the work that puts us in the position to seize the opportunities as they arise.