Good new for fans of #Hashtags, Twitter mash-ups, and aggressively shouted POINTS: Comedy Central has announced that it’s renewing Chris Hardwick’s @midnight for a fourth season. According to Deadline, the show has received another 40-week pick-up, pushing its run well into 2017.
Despite its name, @midnight was recently bumped up by half an hour, taking over The Nightly Show’s old timeslot on weekday nights. (Presumably, nobody thought @11:30 p.m. had the same ring to it, sadly.) It’s not clear whether the move was just a temporary measure to shore up a gap in Comedy Central’s schedule, though, or if the earlier time will be the show’s new permanent home.
Hardwick and his rotating crew of stand-up comics, comedy writers, and assorted internet celebrities had a strong 2016, holding tight to their favorable demographics—i.e., young dudes. They also landed Comedy Central’s most-watched online video of the year, in the form of the hour-long “First @midnight Presidential Debate,” starring James Adomian and Anthony Atamanuik as their versions of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump from their Trump Vs. Bernie stage show.
For his part, Hardwick shows no signs of slowing down, despite the fact that he also hosts AMC’s Talking Dead, as well as pretty much every Comic-Con panel happening anywhere on the planet at any given time. “I LOVE making @midnight and we will continue to innovate inappropriate jokes about social media and pop culture in the late-night landscape,” he said in a recent, characteristically exuberant statement about the renewal. “I’m proud to get to work with this amazing team for another year, and hopefully beyond!”