Yup, His Hairness is leaving in December. To replace him, ABC has to decide whether to have news, or comedy … hmmm, news or comedy …
Frankly, I think the Daily Show represents at least as high journalistic standards as Ted Koppel. How about the bizarre conversation between Koppel and Stewart on Nightline, in which Koppel defended the uncritical reporting of the Swift Boat liars’ claims by positing a distinction between "facts" and "truth"? Oy. Sometimes news is faker than fiction.
In any event, this needs to happen. Yes, Stewart’s got a contract with Viacom, a competitor of Disney/ABC … but there’s got to be a way to make enough pie for everyone. Share the cash. Keep the Daily Show totally intact — all the correspondents, complete artistic control. It would be the new late-night juggernaut. (Personally, I pledge to buy all the toothpaste and Levitra their advertisers want me to get.) Make the deal, folks.
bombadil says
Please, no! You think Disney will allow “complete artistic control”? Ask the leadership at Miramax how that worked out.Jon and his crew should stay where they are, not become some watered-down version of themselves.
david says
I’m with bombadil. No f’in’ way. If Stewart et al. went to a “real” news network, it would be a disaster. Stewart is the top dog at Comedy Central, which means he gets basically anything he wants. He’d just be another show at ABC – and a relatively low one on the totem pole. Fuggedaboudit.
charley-on-the-mta says
Listen to you two. You guys give defeatism a bad name. Gosh, what would happen if something good actually happened? Waaaalll, that wouldn’t be good. Huh??I did qualify my desire for Stewart/TDS to move to ABC: total artistic control. JS and the producers would have to insist on it for the move to be worthwhile. But let’s ask ourselves some questions, assuming the show stayed exactly as currently constituted, except running at 11:35pm on ABC:1. Is there a better show of its kind (topical comedy) out there?Answer: No.2. Would it be a huge head-to-head challenge to Leno and Letterman, probably dominating among the coveted 18-35 yr old (or whatever it is) demographic?Answer: Yup.3. Would ABC and Viacom make lots of $$$ from it?Answer: Yuh-huh.4. Would it be immensely influential, moving from a pay-TV ghetto to a national audience? Might the real news networks get kind of sick of getting totally owned every single night by a bunch of clowns who are wise to their nonsense? Might they have to react somehow?Answer: Yes to all. (e.g. Think about how Saturday Night Live skits affect politics. How much more would TDS — which is much funnier and more pointed — affect the news? Don’t you want to find out?) Come. ON. You cannot be serious in thinking that we’re better off with TDS being viewed by a smaller audience rather than a bigger one.
stomv says
I’ve only seen TDS a few times, mostly 5 minute clips from the Internet. I LOVE IT.But, I don’t have cable. So, I don’t watch it. Were it on ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox/TBS, I would.How many people in TDS’ demographic are similar to my no-cable-havin’ ass? I don’t know. Perhaps not many. Still, methinks that many people with cable are more likely to browse past ABC/CBS/NBC/et al than Comedy Central, if only because its more mainstream and lower on the dial.Who knows?!
david says
Other things being equal, I’d be all for vastly increasing Daily Show’s viewership. And there’s no doubt that moving it to ABC would do that. But “other things being equal” is of course the rub. And, in addition to the risks that bombadil and I pointed out above, I think there’s a serious risk that moving to ABC would affect Stewart and co. in ways that even they can’t predict. Remember Stewart’s astounding appearance on Crossfire and how much mileage he got out of the fact that “the show that leads into him is puppets making crank phone calls”? He loses all of that – and the attitude that goes with it that informs everything they do – if he moves to a “real” network. He would never have been able to pull off what he did on Crossfire (which, IMHO, was one of the great TV guest appearances of the decade) if his base was ABC. Be careful what you wish for.