E! is making sure that it has at least one comedian to stand by, signing Joel McHale for another two years and keeping his pop culture satire show The Soup going.
The Emmy-nominated The Soup has been on the air since 2004 and the new deal ensures that it will continue into a new decade. In addition, E! has signed a first-look deal with Free Perior Productions, McHale’s production company. He will continue to develop non-scripted shows and ideas for E!.
“I'm thrilled to be working at E! for two more years hosting The Soup. Although I narrowly beat Mitt Romney out for the job in a number of states, I'm confident that I can keep up the same quality of humorous observation of shows like Naked Dating and Bad Girls Club Season 12 Reunion Part 2 that the American people age 18-49 have come to expect and deserve,” McHale joked in a statement. “Thank you E!, Comcast Universal, and the entire Dallas Maverick organization."
The Soup airs on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and is produced by Wilshire Studios.
This summer, it started airing live and is the most DVR’d show on E!. It reaches 8.7 million unique viewers a month.
“E!’s been very good with me and the fact that they let me make fun of the Kardashians is one of the reasons why the show works,” McHale said in an interview with TheCelebrityCafe.com earlier this month.
McHale is now the last remaining comedian on E!. Chelsea Handler left the network earlier this year and joined Netflix. She will be the streaming service’s first talk show host starting in 2016.
The comedian will also be seen on Community, which has been saved by Yahoo Screen and will start streaming before the end of the year.