Trevor Noah to Exit ‘Daily Show’ After Seven Years

Trevor Noah is nearing his final chortle on “The Each day Present.”

The comic, who got here out of close to anonymity to take over this system from Jon Stewart in 2015, plans to exit the flagship Comedy Central sequence after a seven-year tenure that noticed him rework it for a brand new technology of viewers who’re extra at residence on social media than they’re cable retailers and broadcast networks.

Noah revealed his plans to an viewers at Thursday night’s taping of this system in New York, in line with two individuals acquainted with the matter. It was not instantly clear when his precise exit would happen, or whether or not the Paramount World cable community had begun to think about a successor. Jill Fritzo, a consultant for Noah, couldn’t be reached for quick remark.

“We’re grateful to Trevor for our superb partnership over the previous seven years.  With no timetable for his departure, we’re working collectively on subsequent steps,” the community mentioned in a press release. “As we glance forward, we’re excited for the subsequent chapter within the 25+ yr historical past of ‘The Each day Present’ because it continues to redefine tradition by sharp and hilarious social commentary, serving to audiences make sense of the world round them.”

Noah’s plans to depart floor as TV’s late-night roster has begun to shrink. Sure, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel nonetheless seem each weeknight round 11:30 p.m. to poke enjoyable at each day headlines and do superstar impressions and stunts, however they’ve fewer rivals. At Warner Bros. Discovery, executives have scuttled late-night exhibits led by each Samantha Bee and Conan O’Brien, and have made no efforts to interchange both. Comedy Central as soon as boasted three totally different applications, led by Stewart, Colbert and Chris Hardwick. Now the cable community is all the way down to only one. Showtime’s “Desus & Mero” just lately stopped manufacturing. James Corden has already indicated he plans to step down from CBS’ “The Late Late Present” subsequent yr, and NBC is now not within the enterprise of airing comedy programming at 1:30 a.m. after parting methods with Lilly Singh in 2021.

One exception is Fox Information Channel’s “Gutfeld,” which options host Greg Gutfeld main a roundtable that hashes over the information of the day and vies with the “Each day Present” time slot. That program, which pulls a special viewers than Comedy Central’s, has seen development within the time interval.

Comedy Central has a number of potential replacements for Noah on its roster. The host works with a big circle of fake “correspondents” that features mainstays comparable to Desi Lydic, Roy Wooden Jr., Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta and Dulcé Sloan. Jordan Klepper, who as soon as hosted “The Opposition,” a present that adopted “Each day,” is a daily contributor, and has gained traction on-line for segments through which he visits conservatives at rallies and asks them questions concerning the state of the nation. Comedy Central has additionally been working with Charlamagne Tha God on a weekly showcase that mixes comedy, commentary and information.

Noah has labored intensely to make this system his personal, holding court docket with varied media influencers after hours, and devising new “Each day” codecs. His banter with the viewers throughout business breaks grew to become fodder for social-media clips. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Noah hosted the present from his house, tilting towards extra severe subjects and interviews within the perception his viewers — youthful than those that watch his rivals on broadcast networks — have been thinking about extra severe dialogue. The present went on hiatus in the summertime of 2021 with a purpose to return to a extra regular mode of manufacturing.

However the comic took over this system below intense scrutiny. Stewart, who inherited “Each day Present” from Craig Kilborn in 1999, turned it into an establishment along with his probes of how the information media offered tales. When Noah took the seat, he confronted a tricky transition. “I’ll say the primary two years have been horrible — and it was horrible as a result of I had taken over certainly one of America’s most beloved establishments,” he informed Selection in 2020. “And though Jon Stewart had handed over the reins to me, it was primarily a yr of individuals telling me I shouldn’t be doing the job and I used to be unworthy of being in that seat. And I continued to consider that. You step into this new function and also you’re doing a brand new job and a lot of the first yr was simply making an attempt to remain afloat, simply making an attempt to not get canceled and looking for my footing. And the analogy I exploit is making an attempt to discover ways to fly a aircraft whereas the aircraft is flying. That’s what it felt like each single day.”

Noah’s exit implies that late-night can be much less various, notably after the exits of Bee and Singh and the tip of the “Desus & Mero” program on Showtime. That dynamic might play a task in how executives at Comedy Central select to proceed.

BreAnna Bell contributed to this report.