Comedy Central Cancels ‘The Opposition With Jordan Klepper’

Comedy Central, which helped to redefine late-night satire with “The Daily Show,” its topical 11 p.m. series, continues to struggle in its efforts to find an 11:30 p.m. companion for that program.

On Friday, the network said it was canceling “The Opposition With Jordan Klepper” after a run of about nine months. “The Opposition,” which made its debut in September, had starred Klepper, a former correspondent for “The Daily Show,” as an incendiary, conspiratorial broadcaster in the vein of Alex Jones. “The Opposition” will end after its June 28 episode, Comedy Central said.

Kent Alterman, Comedy Central’s president, told Deadline that the show’s cancellation had come at a time when the network was deciding whether to renew the contracts of the people involved with “The Opposition” and eager to move Klepper into a new show.

But ratings for “The Opposition” had been mediocre. Last week, it shed more than half the “Daily Show” audience, drawing an average of 330,000 viewers compared with 790,000 for the earlier program, according to Nielsen.

“The Opposition” is the latest show to fall short for Comedy Central in the 11:30 p.m. slot, in the era since Jon Stewart handed off “The Daily Show” to Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert left his “Daily Show” spinoff, “The Colbert Report,” to take over as the host of “The Late Show” on CBS.

Previously, “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore,” another topical comedy show starring a former “Daily Show” correspondent, was canceled in August 2016, after a run of about a year and a half.

Klepper will remain at Comedy Central, where he will star in a new weekly prime-time series, tentatively titled “Klepper,” which is planned to make its debut next year. Comedy Central described the new series as one in which “Jordan Klepper gets out of the studio and into the real world, speaking to real people and addressing issues important to him and to the country.”

Klepper said in a statement, “I couldn’t be more proud of the hardworking, creative staff of ‘The Opposition’ who tirelessly filtered the world through the chaos of America’s fringe.”

He said he planned to leave the “paranoid Jordan Klepper character behind,” adding: “I figured maybe, right now, the world could use one less [expletive]. This new Jordan Klepper guy I know intimately cause I’ve been him for the better part of my life. He’s eager to get into the field, talk to real America and make a kick-ass television show.”

A spokeswoman for Comedy Central said that, in the immediate term, “The Opposition” would be replaced by reruns of “The Office.” Over the longer term, the network is expected to develop a new 11:30 p.m. program, but no format or airdate has been announced.