Jon Stewart: Put Up or Shut Up
Canceled 'Problem' host has perfect chance to speak truth to power ... will he?
“The Problem with Jon Stewart” never overcame the show’s biggest obstacle.
Ratings.
The former “Daily Show” anchor drew a paltry crowd for his Apple TV+ program despite endless press adulation and a crush of hot-button topics.
As the @EntStrategyGuy noted this week, it really is wild that basically *none* of the people writing about Jon Stewart’s show getting canceled talked about how many people actually watched the show. https://t.co/7XUPNyNgTU pic.twitter.com/xGIldT84lR
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) October 22, 2023
Now, the show is no more, but the spin is working overtime.
Reports said “creative differences” led Apple to cancel the low-rated series. Those “differences” included plans to cover both Artificial Intelligence and China, two areas we’re told by the press made Stewart’s bosses uncomfortable.
Stewart could lick his PR wounds and attempt another “Daily Show”-style program on a competing platform. He could resume his directorial career, which seemingly stalled with his poorly received 2020 comedy “Irresistible.”
Or he could go the full Tucker Carlson.
Ep. 32 You’ll be shocked to learn this, but it turns out the whole George Floyd story was a lie. pic.twitter.com/4vDXBStHf5
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) October 20, 2023
The Fox News superstar got fired by the network earlier this year despite boffo ratings and an outsized impact on the political conversation. Carlson laid low for a while but soon returned on social media via Elon Musk’s X platform, formerly dubbed Twitter.
The conservative gadfly generated millions of views on the platform, allowing him to tackle subjects that might have made his former bosses uncomfortable.
- George Floyd’s death
- Jan. 6 narratives
- President Donald Trump
He went rogue, essentially. So why not Stewart?
Stewart, like Carlson, has a loyal fan base and decades of media experience. His X account boasts 1.4 million followers, not a bad base upon which to build a new program. Plus, he must have enough resources to fund a small studio in his home or office where he can broadcast his satirical musings sans filter.
Will he?
RELATED: EGYPT’S JON STEWART CALLS CANCEL CULTURE A MYTH
For now, Stewart is focusing his time elsewhere, like demanding Israel stand down rather than defend itself against the most horrific attack on the Jews since the Holocaust.
The comedian lent his name and gravitas to an open letter demanding a Middle East ceasefire which would essentially let Hamas know that its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which brutally slaughtered more than 1,400 Jews, would be allowed without significant repercussions.
Jon Stewart, Cate Blanchett, Joaquin Phoenix, and more call on President Biden for ceasefire in Gaza and Israel
Story: https://t.co/U2FM4dkrPwhttps://t.co/U2FM4dkrPw
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) October 20, 2023
Stewart has had little to say about the Hamas atrocities. There’s still plenty to say about China, though.
The nation covered up plenty regarding the COVID-19 virus and its aftermath. It continues to hold Uyghurs in concentration camps and clamps down, hard, on free speech.
China’s impact on Hollywood has been an open secret for some time, but the industry’s willingness to play footsie with the regime could still use a Stewart-sized skewering…. no?
Surely a truth talker like Stewart could weigh in on any of the above. He might even spill some dirt about why Apple TV+ preferred he didn’t critique China. Imagine how many views that segment might draw on X or a freer speech platform like Rumble.
And, given social media and technological advances he no longer needs an Apple TV+ platform to do any of the above.
He can go rogue, too. Nothing is stopping him now.
Will he?
He really was funny early on and had jokes both ways. Now he is just another non-funny comic a-la Rosie, Whoopi, Chelsea Barf Handler, etc. He won’t change, nobody will watch and he will be the guy saying “I will leave the US if Trump wins” and then he won’t leave- he is that guy. Dig your site Christian.
Jon Stewarts problem is he has a very narrow field of entertainment. He can be very funny but only when he goes after his own, which can only last so long. Take a guy like Joe Rogan, he can make almost anyone sound interesting. That’s very important when you are trying to garner a large and diverse audience.
This article reads like it was written by a whiney conservative.
Great. Now, can you comment on the arguments made in the article?
I doubt it. Because, unlike Tucker Carlson, Jon Stewart is more of a gutless coward, who’ll kiss the establishment’s butt.
He’s never been very popular – his Comedy Central show rarely got more than a million viewers, putting it well below most shows on Fox News in the ratings. But because he had all of the “correct” positions, the media boosted his profile to make him culturally relevant. Now that basically every talk show is a Daily Show clone, he isn’t needed anymore, so he’s been cast out to the wastelands.
40,000 viewers?
Russell Brand gets at least ten times that many views per YouTube video, and sometimes gets THIRTY times that.