Trevor Noah Extends Contract Through 2022, Adds ‘Daily Show’ Year End Specials To Franchise
Comedy Central and Trevor Noah have agreed to a contract extension, keeping The Daily Show host/writer/exec producer on board through 2022.
“It’s really exciting to renew this contract for either five more years or until Kim Jong Un annihilates us all – whichever one comes first,” joked Noah, who, this past weekend, picked up his first Emmy. His statuette is for Best Short Form Variety Series, for The Daily Show‘s “Between the Scenes” digital exclusives.
The new pact has Noah also producing and hosting annual The Daily Show year-end specials, beginning this year. “The Daily Show will no longer take for granted that humankind has made it to another December 31st and from here on out will celebrate in annual year-end specials,” the program explained this morning.
“Trevor makes us look smart on a daily basis, and for that we’re grateful,” Comedy Central president Kent Alterman said in today’s announcement, as Noah approaches the two-year anniversary of his September 28 debut. The exec describes Noah as “super smart, very thoughtful…really funny and also he’s unflappable. He’s one of the most self-possessed people I have ever come across.”
That served Noah well when press had a tough time letting go of Jon Stewart as show host, Alterman said. While calling it “gratifying” how the press has come around, “where it matters most is the audience,” whose response has been “exciting,” Alterman described.
Noah’s run to date as host scored its viewership highs in August and currently is the only daily late-night show pacing to finish the 2016-2017 season with year-over-year growth in total viewers (14%) and adults 18-49 (6%). He’s leading the field with millennials, Alterman boasted, and the show has clocked 2.2 billion digital views. “Trevor was not someone who needed to learn; he’s a digital native,” Alterman said.
Among the changes since Noah debuted, Alterman noted, the South African comic was familiar with the United States from his touring career, “but now he’s living here. In the beginning it may have felt like an outsider poking fun at America.” It has changed the way he relates, and the way the audience relates to him.”
Comedy Central announced Noah’s deal on the eve of debuting new companion program The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper, on September 25.
“Jordan is really sharp about seeing how the world has changed and formulating the show accordingly,” Alterman described.
“We’re living in a world that’s so divisive…There is such mistrust of main-stream media from the left and right.” Klepper’s show is crafted around the dynamic of the “activist citizen journalist movement,” and the way people now are reacting to the political process, the exec described.
“It’s very complimentary to The Daily Show,” Alterman forecast.
“Hopefully we will enjoy that power hour in a new way like used to have with Jon and Stephen,” he added confidently.
“But, I’ll give you a spoiler alert…it will take Jordan and that show time to evolve” as well.
Noah is repped by CAA, Mainstay Entertainment and Hansen Jacobson.
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