Articles of Distraction

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Trevor Noah’s surprise Daily Show departure is apparently part of network-wide upheaval
AV Club

Last week, Trevor Noah shocked the world by announcing that he will be leaving The Daily Show at some point in the future (he didn’t say when, just that it would be happening), and by “shocked the world,” we mean it: The announcement was reportedly news to some members of the show’s staff and even to people at Comedy Central, but according to a new Hollywood Reporter piece, it’s emblematic of some much bigger issues at the network.

Those issues seem to have been exacerbated by the rise of current MTV Entertainment Group CEO Chris McCarthy, who rose up through the ranks of Viacom’s unscripted division and has recently decided that Comedy Central should not be making live-action, scripted comedies… or, really, anything but South Park. THR notes that it was under McCarthy’s watch that Drunk History was canned, that South Side and The Other Two were handed over to HBO Max, and that a development deal with Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello—who later co-created HBO Max’s Hacks—was canceled.