ADDITIONAL NOTES: a show on hiatus for longer than 12 months - without any news about its future - is assumed to be canceled
DESCRIPTION: (from NBC's press release, March 2015) "Last Comic Standing" resumes its search for the funniest comic in the country with the best panel of judges to date, surprise celebrity guests and a new riveting head-to-head phase of the competition. The season will open up with hilarious auditions by invitation only. The top 100 comics in America will vie for 20 spots. These 20 will then compete in a semifinal round and the best of the best will emerge, with the top 10 moving into the compelling head to head round. In this phase, they will be paired in a high stakes single-elimination round of stand-up stand offs. The top five comedians will move on to the finals, where the funniest of all will take the coveted title of "Last Comic Standing," winning an incredible prize package worth $250,000, including a cash prize, a talent deal and a development deal for a television show. "Last Comics Standing" averaged a 1.7 rating, 6 share in adults 18-49 and 5.1 million viewers overall last summer, and ranked #1 or tied for #1 versus its regular ABC and CBS time-slot competition with 12 of 13 telecasts. "Last Comic" was a strong upscale draw, indexing at a 126 among adults 18-49 living in homes with $100K+ incomes (100 represents an average concentration of those homes). "Last Comic Standing" is executive produced by Wanda Sykes, Page Hurwitz and Javier Winnik. The series is produced by Universal Television and Push It Productions.
