Chris Hardwick's show "@midnight" was canceled in August, even though it was a success for Comedy Central.

Hardwick told INSIDER that his show wasn't suitable for a new era of politically-charged late-night comedy.

Comedy Central wanted more politics in its late-night lineup, and Hardwick was ready to move on.

He's still keeping busy with a network of podcasts and various TV and movie projects.

Ever since "@midnight With Chris Hardwick" ended its Emmy-winning four-year run in August, its host has only gotten more busy. But why did the show — a viral hit and a possible signal of the future for Comedy Central — get canceled in the first place?

The culprit, Hardwick told INSIDER, was politics.

"We were not a political show," Hardwick said. "We started doing politics in the last year, but that was only because it so dominated social media and our show was designed to talk about what people on social media were talking about."

There's still plenty of Hardwick to go around. He oversees a network of podcast under his "ID10T" banner, hosted a half-dozen talk shows in AMC, is producing even more projects for other networks, and plans to make three movies with Blumhouse.

But "@midnight" is still missed. And when it ended, there remained some mystery over why Comedy Central would cancel such a successful show.

Late-night comedy became all about politics.

According to Hardwick, the show increasingly began to occupy an ungainly spot in the network's lineup. "@midnight" wasn't built to adapt to the increasingly charged discussions in comedy and late-night television created by the political rise of Donald Trump.

Because "@midnight" had a game show structure, it wasn't easy for him to have the depth or nuance needed to cover political topics, like John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight" on HBO or TBS's Samantha Bee talk show, "Full Frontal."

"It was very difficult for us to cover heavier topics because we never wanted to seem frivolous about it," Hardwick said. "There are some topics that you just don’t want to gloss over with just jokes. You want to really dive into them. And we find that difficult to do."

In any case, he wanted his show to be a form of escapism for its audience. That became harder to do with the frantic pace of the news — especially with a time slot that was just before most people go to bed.

"Political comedy really divides people," Hardwick said. "I wanted our show to be celebratory and sort of bring people together. ... People don't need to be reminded that the world is falling apart 24/7."

The "@Midnight with Chris Hardwick" team won an Emmy in 2015. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

At the same time, Viacom and Comedy Central went through high-level executive shakeups, and network heads wanted to lean into political comedy for its late-night programming. "@midnight," which had shifted time slots since Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert left the network, didn't fit neatly into their vision.

"You had this kind of new regime that was probably looking at new programming that they wanted to do," Hardwick said. "They really wanted to put a political show at 11:30 p.m. to pair with ["The Daily Show With Trevor Noah"]."

The network ultimately put a new show, "The Opposition With Jordan Klepper" — an "Infowars" parody starring a "Daily Show" alumnus — in the 11:30 p.m. slot and dropped "@midnight."

Hardwick was ready to move on.

Hardwick wasn't too bothered. After four years and a planned 600 episodes, he was starting to feel he had done everything on the show that he wanted to do. He wanted to go out on a high note.

"I don't think anyone wanted to be in a place where the show just felt like it had plateaued and then kept going," he said. "It felt like the right time. We had the opportunity to go out gracefully."

Hardwick and his wife Lydia Hearst at a "Walking Dead" event in October. He hosts the AMC show "Talking Dead." Jesse Grant/Getty Images for AMC

Hardwick is keeping busy with his podcasts, TV shows, and movie-producing producing projects — but he still misses "@midnight."

"There are not a lot of platforms for stand-up comedians on television anymore," he said. "It was a good discovery platform. Just as a comedy fan, I loved that element."

Comedy Central didn't immediately respond to INSIDER's request for comment.