Jon Stewart fans, remain calm. Alas it was a terrible summer. First, Stephen Colbert announced that he would be ending his stint on The Colbert Report. But fans weren’t too worried, since we all knew he would return in the fall to take over for David Letterman. And then the news really hit hard, when Jon Stewart said he was done with The Daily Show. That’s when we freaked out. There was nothing left to turn to. There wasn’t a host opening. There wasn’t a segment in which he could become a recurring correspondent. We were losing someone.
Or so we thought. Stewart has just signed a four year contract with HBO to make all digital content, meaning that it would be streamed online and on HBO GO or HBO NOW and other digital platforms. Stewart is working with OTOY, a graphics company that will produce the videos with him, and although there is a chance he won’t be on camera, he still will narrate them.
As part of the deal, HBO gets “first-look options” for anything that Stewart will do, meaning that if he wants to develop a show or film, HBO gets first dibs. But nonetheless, this will prove helpful to Stewart, HBO, and fans everywhere. Whereas Stewart has stated that the show was an energy drain despite loving it, he can now make short videos that will be all the more accessible to his fans, which tend to lean toward a younger demographic.
