Larry Wilmore’s Comedy Central, ‘Colbert Report’ follow-up no longer ‘The Minority Report’

When we first heard that Larry Wilmore was planning to call his Comedy Central show (and the follow-up to “The Colbert Report“) “The Minority Report,” our first reaction was that it was pretty funny, given that he has played up his race for comedy on “The Daily Show.”

However, there was also another pretty big problem with the name: For those uninitiated, this name probably invoked images of Tom Cruise … who is very much not the star of this particular show.

Speaking to the New York Times, Wilmore confirmed that the name of his show, premiering next year, has been changed to “The Nightly Show,” though he did not say that Cruise had anything to do with it. Instead, he comments that he wanted to ensure that the message of the name was read properly:

“It was never intended to be a show only about minorities … It’s a show about underdogs, and that happens in a lot of different forms, whether it’s race, gender, or whatever.”

We are very interested to see how this show ultimately fares, given that Wilmore is not considered to be as high-profile a star as Colbert, and probably is not even in context of when Stephen left “The Daily Show” to begin his own program. With that being said, he’s an extremely funny, intelligent guy, and he has his own point of view on issues that will separate him from Jon Stewart.

The best thing that he will have going for him almost right away is a tremendous infrastructure, given that his show is sandwiched right in between “The Daily Show” and the brilliant “@midnight.”

What do you think about the new name, and how it compares at least right now to the old name? Share your thoughts with a comment, and head over here to get some other TV updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo via Comedy Central.)