‘Real Time With Bill Maher’ Renewed For Two More Seasons On HBO

HBO has renewed Real Time with Bill Maher for two more seasons. The deal will take the show through Season 17 and 18, scheduled for 2019 and 2020. It also includes Maher’s 11th stand-up special on the premium network and a retrospective special highlighting memorable moments from Real Time’s previous seasons.

“We are incredibly proud to continue our longstanding relationship with Bill Maher,” said Casey Bloys, President of Programming at HBO. “As part of the HBO family for nearly 30 years, Bill’s distinctive point of view, coupled with his passion and commitment to insightful and informative entertainment, has remained unparalleled.”

Said Maher, “I’m extraordinarily grateful to HBO for one of the great relationships of my life, and I applaud their efforts to fight ageism by signing me to this extended deal.”

Maher headlined his first HBO special in 1989, and his most recent stand-up program was Bill Maher: Live From D.C. in 2014. He also won an Emmy as an executive producer of the newsmagazine show Vice, which is now in its fifth season on HBO.

The news comes just a month after Maher seemed more skeptical than usual — at least about his TV longevity in an era of what he believes to be political correctness. “I don’t know how long I’m going to last, really. It’s worse every year,” he told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. “The things that they go after people for now. Your colleague — I don’t agree with him — Jeffrey Lord, CNN got rid of him because he said ‘sieg heil’ on a tweet. It was a joke.”

Real Time returns to HBO this Friday after taking Labor Day weekend off. This week’s guests are Adam Gopnik, S.E. Cupp, Xiuhtezcatz Martinez and Ken Bone, the red sweater-wearing-questioner from a Trump-Clinton debate who became an overnight Internet meme last year.