Trevor Noah, a South African comedian with a low profile in the United States, will inherit one of the most-watched pulpits in late night TV: Jon Stewart’s desk on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show.” The Viacom-owned outlet said the comic’s debut as host would be announced at a later date.
Noah has “such a unique and powerful voice,” said Michele Ganeless, Comedy Central’s president, in an interview Monday morning. Executives feel he is “a gifted comedian and storyteller,” she added. “He was not a new face to us, but he will be to a lot of people.” Stewart himself was involved as an “adviser” in the selection process, she said.
The network does not anticipate the core of the program changing radically, said Ganeless, though Noah’s tenure may lend an opportunity to give the program a more global point of view.
“The core of ‘The Daily Show’ will not change,” she said. “It is still a Comedy Central take on the day’s events.” The network also hopes to maintain “continuity” to a large degree with the producers and writers behind the scenes, she said.
Comedy Central has had a string of hits in latenight in recent years, from Stephen Colbert’s “Colbert Report” to the new social-media-themed game show “@midnight,” which launched in 2013. But a tidal shift in latenight television sparked by the impending retirement of David Letterman at CBS has thrown new hurdles at the network. Colbert ended his program late last year to prepare to take over “The Late Show” at CBS after Letterman steps down in May. Larry Wilmore has stepped into his timeslot with “The Nightly Report,” a half-hour that looks at issues of culture and race and has gained some plaudits but that is still experimenting with its format and lineup.
There were some early indications that Comedy Central executives were interested in finding a woman to fill the lead at “The Daily Show,” with speculation centered around celebrities ranging from Tina Fey to Amy Poehler to Schumer. “We talked to women and we talked to men,” Ganeless noted, but ultimately Noah “rose to the top of the list.”
