Comedy Central Picks-Up Late-Night Social Sensation @MIDNIGHT

Points! Comedy Central has picked-up the Chris Hardwick-hosted and Funny Or Die-produced late-night series "@midnight," and will bring it back in January when "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" return from their end-of-year hiatus, it was formally announced today by Kent Alterman, President, Content Development and Original Programming, Comedy Central. The 40-week order firmly establishes "@midnight" as late-night's newest hit and provides Comedy Central with another bona fide franchise, extending its award-winning late-night line-up into the midnight hour.

"We're amazed at how quickly '@midnight' has resonated with our fans," said Alterman. "If the internet catches on and social media becomes a part of pop culture, we think we'll really have something here."

Said Hardwick: "I don't have adequate words to express how excited I am that we are going to be a fixture of late-night in 2014. Huge thanks to the amazing teams at Funny Or Die, Serious Business, and Tom Lennon and Ben Garant. They've made this process one of the most rewarding and fun experiences of my life. Finally, to the fantastic folks at Comedy Central, I say, POINTS!!!"

Since its premiere on October 21, the pop culture/social media-focused "@midnight" has slotted in perfectly behind Comedy Central's dominant one/two punch of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" and has provided the #1 brand in comedy with a third must-watch late-night series among its target audience of young men. Over the course of the first three full weeks of available data during its current run (October 21-November 10), "@midnight" has joined "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" as the three most-watched series among Men 18-34, Men 18-24 and Adults 18-24 among all late-night shows, both broadcast and cable (see charts below), and with a median age of 32, "@midnight" is the youngest of all late-night shows on television.

The popularity and success of "@midnight" has extended to second screens where it has become the most talked about late-night show in social media garnering over 300,000 total mentions on Twitter which has led to over one billion total impressions. That's billion with a "b," not a typo. The social sensation's signature segment, "#HashtagWars," has generated Trending Topics on a nightly basis and has consistently finished among the Top 3 entertainment series on SocialGuide's Late Fringe rankings, earning the #1 ranking for eight of its first 15 episodes.

"@midnight" 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 happenings and win the Internet. Using social media as the catalyst and a fake game show as the setting, "@midnight" challenges comedians to prove who's the funniest by slashing the craziest, most absurd news and post that social media has to offer: from celebrity Twitter tantrums to the most bizarre Yahoo Answers to rich kids on Instagram.

"@midnight" is Executive Produced by Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant ("RENO 911!"); Hardwick; Mike Farah for Funny Or Die; Alex Blagg, Jason Nadler and Jon Zimelis of Serious Business; showrunner Jack Martin; and Alex Murray of Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Co-Executive Produced by Funny Or Die's Joe Farrell. Jim Sharp and Gary Mann are the Executives in Charge of Production for Comedy Central.