If you want to get a sense of where Comedy Central stands in the TV landscape, consider this.
Consider these two things, really.
The basic cable TV network has so much quality programming that its “For Your Consideration” video for Emmy voters will remind you of such — Broad City, Inside Amy Schumer, The Daily Show, Key & Peele, Nathan For You, Review, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, South Park, Tosh.0, Workaholics. Roll the clip!
Of course, Jon Stewart’s impending departure from The Daily Show this summer after 16 years of building it into must-see late-night TV is a factor, too — and reporter Jonah Weiner reveals that Comedy Central engaged both Amy Poehler and Chris Rock in conversations about taking the anchor desk before eventually offering the job to Trevor Noah, who’ll assume the gig in September.
As for reaching audiences where they are today, the NYTMag cites stats from Comedy Central and Nielsen Media Research for this current third season of Inside Amy Schumer (episodes 1-7):
- 27,007,746 YouTube views
- 4,531,357 Facebook video views
- 1,222,943 Hulu views
- 4,249,479 SnapChat streams
- 1,400,000 average TV audience
“The success of a show can go beyond the pure rating number,” Alterman said. “I rarely encounter anyone who hasn’t heard of Broad City and isn’t a fan of it — just anecdotally, it transcends age and gender. If you just looked at the ratings on the day of airing, it would suggest it’s not a wildly popular show. But I know otherwise.”