Act Four: The downside of getting exactly what you want from pop culture

The downside of very specific TV is that it might not last for very long.   Alyssa Rosenberg on culture and politics   “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore” comes to an end after an 18-month run. The late-night show has been known for featuring frank discussions about race, gender equality, politics and pop culture. (Bryan Bedder/Comedy Central) My friend Josef Adalian is one of the smartest reporters I know when it comes to explaining the business of television. And this week, he filed a very useful brief about why the cancellation of Larry Wilmore’s “The Nightly Show” was probably inevitable. “The network might have tolerated the ratings declines had there been other signs ‘TNS’ was catching on with viewers,” Adalian explains. “But [Trevor] Noah's broadcast, despite audience defections, is still holding its own with certain categories of viewers. Among the youngest millennials, adults under 24, ‘Daily Show’ tied NBC's ‘The Tonight Show’ during the second quarter, and it was a dominant first among men in that age group, beating out second-place Jimmy Kimmel. Comedy Central also says it's seen evidence younger viewers are connecting to ‘Daily Show’ on other platforms (VOD, YouTube, social media) in a way they've not been doing with ‘TNS.’ ” While Adalian’s analysis is specific to Comedy Central and to “The Nightly Show,” it’s also a valuable reminder that just because television has become more niche and less attuned to traditional ratings doesn’t mean that passion alone can sustain a program. The upside of the new, more fragmented Peak TV era is that artists can make more specific, narrowly targeted programming, which means we’ve had a flowering of great, eccentric television, much of it created by people whose voices were marginalized in a more centralized era. The downside is that the margins on these shows are thinner; you can live or die by a hundred thousand viewers, or by the sense that you’re breaking out on social media. So we may get precisely the shows we’ve dreamed of. We just might not have them for very long. We can mourn their passing, or celebrate that we had these shows for as long as we did. ADVERTISEMENT   ‘Telefone’ explores black womanhood in the time of Black Lives Matter An album about dying young comes to us from an artist who is desperate to live. By Stacia L. Brown  •  Read more »   The story of slave revolts, beyond ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Fears that a director's past misdeeds might doom an important movie aren't unfounded. But Hollywood needs to have the courage southern cities have already demonstrated. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   What to do when great art and horrible behavior go together Trying to reconcile the art and the artist is a fool's errand. Separate them -- but examine both vigorously. By Sonny Bunch  •  Read more »   Massachusetts doesn’t owe Curt Schilling a Senate seat Bringing the World Series back to Boston doesn't entitle Schilling to get whatever he wants from the region for the rest of his life. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   Advocating for specific plot twists isn’t meaningful political activism Progressives should focus more broadly on who gets to tell stories, and the freedom they have to tell them, rather than getting caught up in narrow battles. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   ADVERTISEMENT   Recommended for you   Intersect The corner of the Internet and interesting, in your inbox weekly. Sign Up »         Share Act Four:       Twitter      Facebook Trouble reading? Click here to view in your browser. You received this email because you signed up for Act Four. For additional free newsletters or to manage your newsletters, click here. We respect your privacy. If you believe that this email has been sent to you in error or you no longer wish to receive email from The Washington Post, click here. Contact us for help. ©2016 The Washington Post, 1301 K St NW, Washington DC 20071