Desus & Meros Move to Showtime Could Shake Up Late Night for Good

At this point, it seems a new late-night show gets announced every day. Netflix is assembling a small empire of talk shows, helmed by hosts including Michelle Wolf, Norm MacDonald, Joel McHale, and soon, Hasan Minhaj, while Busy Philipps preps a talk show for E! and the team behind the humor site Reductress is assembling its own pilot for Comedy Central. Still, Mondays announcement should rouse even the most exhausted comedy fan: Desus Nice and The Kid Mero are taking their double act to Showtime, with a new weekly program.

Nearly two years after the premiere of their Viceland show, Desus & Mero, the dynamic duo is moving to Showtime, which offers a much larger platform and a whole new audience. According to Deadline, the two will host a weekly half-hour program on the premium cable network thats set to premiere in 2019. The series will be historic for Showtime, which until now has never launched a talk show. As the networks president, David Nevins, told Deadline, “We have waited a long time to enter the talk-show space, and we were only going to do it if we felt like we had the next big thing. Desus and Mero feel like exactly that: They have knockout comedic voices, theyre brilliant interviewers, and they always have a unique take on culture both high and low. They have a loyal and devoted fan base that will only multiply, and we cant wait to see them take it to the next level on Showtime.”

If it seems like Showtime is placing a big bet on these two, the play is well founded. Ever since the launch of their first show together—Complex TVs Desus vs. Mero—the two have built a reputation based on their great chemistry and refreshing spontaneity. Especially since their 2016 premiere on Viceland, the two have become known, especially among a certain set of Web-savvy TV fans, for their ability to operate essentially without a net, breezing through off-the-cuff takes on all the days news, as curated, often, from Twitter. Their staff is lean and their approach eschews the deeply ingrained formats—e.g., monologues—that have come to characterize most other late-night shows. Although their ratings are no match for more traditional broadcast and cable programs, their audience has steadily grown—and as the two move to a more traditional platform, it stands to reason their following is about to get a lot bigger.

But what will this new series look like? Per the *Times,* the two envision a series that combines elements from The Daily Show and Chappelles Show. Expect the same approach as their current series, which is expected to end on June 28, but with a bigger budget—meaning more visual aids, sketches, and a couple of correspondents. The one thing that might make this move tough is the format—a half-hour program that will air weekly, rather than nightly. With so much news happening so quickly, it can be difficult to make a weekly program feel up to speed. Some shows, like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, avoid even trying by focusing on longer takes rather than news. Others, like Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, simply focus on the topics that interest them—which are sometimes timely, sometimes not.

Whatever the seriess construction, this move is a big step both for Desus and Mero, and for Showtime. Right now, despite all the new entries into the genre, the late-night landscape still feels overwhelmingly traditional—and, despite the presence of hosts including Trevor Noah, Robin Thede, and Wyatt Cenac, pretty white. This move will bring an infusion of unpredictability and perspective that many late-night fans have been craving—assuming they havent already been devouring Desus & Mero on Viceland or YouTube. And for those that are already in the know, the series will be all the more easy to stream. Bottom line? This seems like a win for everyone.

Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Laura BradleyLaura Bradley is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com.

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