Comedy Central Renews @MIDNIGHT for Third Season

Your nightly dose of happenings on the internet are here to stay as Comedy Central has renewed the multiplatform hit and Emmy®-nominated "@midnight with Chris Hardwick" for a third season, it was announced today by Kent Alterman, President, Content Development and Original Programming, Comedy Central. The third season order of "@midnight," produced by Funny Or Die, is a 40-week run that will air throughout 2016.

Airing Monday-Thursday after "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore," "@midnight with Chris Hardwick" is executive produced by Hardwick, Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant; Mike Farah and Joe Farrell for Funny Or Die; Alex Blagg, Jason Nadler and Jon Zimelis of Serious Business; showrunner Jack Martin; and Alex Murray of Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Gary Mann and Tara Schuster are the Executives in Charge of Production for Comedy Central. The series received a 2014 Emmy® nomination for "Outstanding Interactive Program."

"Creating a new franchise in late night is no small feat, and we couldn't be more proud of Chris and the entire team for what they've accomplished," said Alterman.

"Comedy Central has been an amazing and supportive partner for '@midnight' and I cannot thank them enough," added Hardwick. "Making inappropriate jokes about Internet culture with my comedian friends is something I would do for the rest of my life if they'd let me. And this pick-up gives us the runway to tackle next year's election, which I'm guessing will yield no shortage of social media gems."

Dominating and commenting on the social media landscape unlike any series in the late-night arena with a dedicated digital production team responsible for creating and sharing content across all platforms, "@midnight" is the most social of the late-night talk shows, generating an average of 243,000 weekly social mentions. The series' signature #HashtagWars consistently lands as Twitter's top Trending Topic, both nationally and worldwide, on a nightly basis1 and the recent show extensions like its #PointsMe and Plot Twistagram competitions have engaged fans on an entirely new level, bringing "@midnight" off the screen and into their feeds. On-air "@midnight" reaches the youngest (median age: 33 years), most male (68%) audience of any late-night talk show and ranks #2 with Men 18-34 and #3 with People 18-34 in all of late-night.

"@midnight with Chris Hardwick" leads viewers down the ultimate internet wormhole with a rotating lineup of today's top comedians battling nightly to determine who has the funniest take on the day's social media and pop culture. Using social media as the catalyst and a fake game show as the setting, "@midnight" challenges comedians to win the Internet by slashing the craziest, most absurd news and posts that social media has to offer: from the latest celebrity Instagram shots to the creepiest Craigslist posting to Buzzspeed lists and infamous #HashtagWars.

Guest panelists that have appeared on the show include Judd Apatow, Doug Benson, Jason Biggs, Neal Brennan, HANNIBAL Buress, LeVar Burton, Ice Cube, Andy Daly, Will Ferrell, James Franco, Ilana Glazer, Seth Green, Jon Hamm, Jonah Hill, Abbi Jacobson, Kyle Kinane, David Koechner, Natasha Leggero, Thomas Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio, Marc Maron, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Jonah Ray, Rob Riggle, Seth Rogen, R2-D2, Kristen Schaal, David Spade, Ben Stiller, Amber Tamblyn, Channing Tatum, Aisha Tyler, David Wain, Wil Wheaton, and Weird Al Yankovic along with the casts of "RENO 911!," and "The Walking Dead."

Available on-air, online and on-the-go, Comedy Central (www.cc.com) is the #1 brand in comedy and is owned by, and is a registered trademark of, Comedy Partners, a wholly-owned unit of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA and VIAB).

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