‘America’s Got Talent’: Why Nick Cannon reportedly agonized over leaving the show

Many of you out there who are fans of “America’s Got Talent” have likely heard the news by now: Nick Cannon, the long-popular host of the NBC series, is going to be leaving the show prior to the start of the next season. The stunning part of it is still why, as it has to do with criticism that Cannon may have received from network executives after making remarks about his employer, in a joking fashion, during a recent Showtime comedy special.

Specifically, TMZ reports now that Cannon’s decision was a difficult one to make, but he opted to do this after he felt like the network didn’t have the same respect for his career and his humor than they did some of the other people who have been personalities over the years. He does have a point, given that Jay Leno and David Letterman are both classic examples of guys who long bashed NBC, but never had anything happen when it comes to their employment. On an even more exaggerated level, Ricky Gervais openly mocked NBC’s ratings and its ability to produce critically-acclaimed shows on the Golden Globes for many years, and he was invited back. This is an interesting contrast to Cannon’s comments, which we admittedly not heard of before we heard of him leaving the show.

We’ll admit that we do have a longstanding bias towards Cannon, given that he, Kenan Thompson, and Kel Mitchell were three of the most influential comedy figures to us as a kid when they were on Nickelodeon. Also, “AGT” previously had Howard Stern on the panel, and he is the king of all controversy just as much as he is the King of All Media.

It’s a shame that the parties couldn’t work something out, especially since we do feel like this is such a fun, entertaining show and we don’t want to see it had this sort of cloud over it.

We mentioned yesterday that Ryan Seacrest was recently coy about whether or not he’d be interested in taking on the gig. We’ll have further news on this subject once it becomes available, but for now we do continue to welcome some of your thoughts below! (Photo: NBC.)