Jon Stewart has gone full-scorched Earth on his own parent company.
The Daily Show host used the opening of his Monday night show to give his hot take on the cancelation of his old friend Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.
“I understand the corporate fear. I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with $8B at stake, but understand this, truly, the shows that you now seek to cancel, censor and control, a not insignificant portion of that $8B value came from those f*cking shows. That’s what made you that money,” he said. “Shows that say something, shows that take a stand, shows that are unafraid. Believe me, this is not a ‘We speak truth to power’. We don’t; we speak opinions to television cameras, but we try. We f*cking try every night. If you believe as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king’s radar, [firstly] why will anyone watch you and you are f*cking wrong.”
“You want to know how impossible it is to stay on Lord Farquaad’s good side? Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, the man other than Biden, maybe most responsible for getting Trump elected. Fox spends 24 hours a day blowing Trump, and it’s not enough. Imagine suing someone mid-blow,” he added.
Stewart alluded to the conspiracies that Paramount canceled The Late Show because Colbert called its decision to settle his lawsuit against them a “big fat bribe”.
“If you’re trying to figure out why Stephen’s show is ending, I don’t think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives or in CBS’ QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night. I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America’s institutions at this very moment, institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair doodling Commander in Chief. This is not the moment to give in,” he added.
“I’m not giving in, I’m not going anywhere, I think,” he added, alluding to the idea that Paramount may also cancel The Daily Show.
He ended the segment by repeating a line that Colbert used earlier on his show, except Stewart did it in song.
“If you’re afraid and you protect your bottom line, I’ve got but one thing to say ‘Go f*ck yourself’,” he closed out.
Paramount, which owns both CBS and Comedy Central, made the decision last week, a move that has put late-night front and center in a way that it hasn’t been in the media business for some time. Stewart also joked about late-night’s general issues. “We are all basically operating a Blockbuster kiosk inside of a Tower Records,” he joked.
Stewart did admit that he wasn’t an “objective” commenter given his relationship with Colbert.
Colbert was a correspondent on The Daily Show between 1997 and 2005 and Stewart took over as host in 1999. The Colbert Report, the show that the Strangers with Candy star and co-creator left The Daily Show for, aired after Stewart’s nightly show on Comedy Central. The pair have worked closely together, share a manager in James ‘Babydoll’ Dixon and Stewart has been a regular guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert including as the first in-studio guest after the show returned to the studio after the pandemic.
The Daily Show is facing its own challenges given the current situation with its parent company. Ahead of the Colbert news, Stewart himself last week addressed the possibility that new owners Skydance might cancel it.
He said that the David Ellison-run company may “sell the whole fucking place for parts” and compared his own network to “muzak”.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t heard anything from them,” he said on his podcast The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. “They haven’t called me and said like ‘Don’t get too comfortable in that office, Stewart.’ But let me tell you something, I’ve been kicked out of shittier establishments than that. We’ll land on our feet.”
