Jon Stewart admits his talk show is past its peak as he pays tribute to fired Steven Colbert
'We were two pretty good-sized fish in a reasonably small basic cable pond. Both of our shows reached an inflection point in 2015,' Stewart said Monday of the pair's shared success during their days on Comedy Central.
'Stephen chose to challenge himself by seeing if he could succeed the legendary David Letterman in, quite frankly, a much bigger pond than the one he and I had been swimming in,' Stewart said. 'And I quit. And I quit.
'Stephen challenged himself. I passed away. Stephen challenged his abilities and the biggest field you could. And I literally went to a farm upstate.'
The spiel came during a highly reflective segment on Stewart's Daily Show, which originally aired alongside Colbert's since-cancelled 'Colbert Report' in the 2000s.
Stewart said Colbert went on to 'exceed all expectations' upon leaving Comedy Central for late-night, before acknowledging the fading format as a whole.
'Now, I acknowledge, losing money, late-night TV is a struggling financial model,' he said. 'We are all basically operating a Blockbuster kiosk inside of a Tower Records.'
'But when your industry is faced with changes, you don't just call it a day,' Stewart then joked. 'When CDs stopped selling, they didn't just go, "Oh, well, music, it's been a good run!".'
As to whether his show could soon follow Colbert's into cancellation, Stewart said, "I'm not going anywhere - I think.'
Earlier, Stewart addressed the elephant in the room - controversy surrounding Colbert's employer, CBS, amid claims its decision to cancel Colbert's show was rooted in politics.
Stewart made clear he does not buy CBS's claim Colbert was canceled for 'purely financial reasons,' and instead subscribes to the theory the network reached a $16 million settlement in a suit filed by the president earlier this month as means to secure FCC approval for a still pending merger with Skydance Media.
He addressed executives at Paramount - CBS's parent company - directly, accusing them of capitulating to Trump to secure the sale.
He said: 'I believe CBS lost the benefit of the doubt two weeks prior, when they sold out their flagship news program to pay an extortion fee to said president.'
'At that time, poor Andy Rooney must have been rolling over in his bed,' he joked of the late legendary news writer. 'That's right. He is alive. Andy Rooney is alive.'
'I understand the corporate fear. I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with $8 billion at stake. But understand this,' Stewart added.
'Truly, the shows that you now seek to cancel, censor, and control? A not-insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from those f**king shows,' he added.
'That's what made you that money. Shows that say something. Shows that take a stand.'
He further asserted CBS and Paramount would be fools to cut Colbert loose, regardless of how much Trump may be pulling their proverbial strings.
He told worried executives, 'If you believe 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... Why will anyone watch you?'
'And you are f**king wrong,' he said of CBS reaching a settlement in the suit that had accused Paramount, CBS, and its flagship show 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview with Kamala Harris weeks before the election.
'Do you want to know how impossible it is to stay on Lord Farquaad's good side?' Stewart joked.
He then pointed to Trump's $10illion lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, following a Wall Street Journal report that linked Trump to Jeffrey Epstein as proof of how quickly the conservative's alliances can grow cold.
'Fox spends 24 hours a day blowing Trump, and it's not enough,' he said.
Colbert, 61, is one the most prominent of critics of the conservative and called himself a 'martyr' on Monday after the president gloated over The Late Show's cancellation in a pointed post to Truth Social over the weekend.
The parties reached the $16 million settlement in a suit surrunding an Octobert 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris earlier this month. That is only slightly more than the $15 million Colbert is said to earn annually for his show
The suit had accused Paramount, CBS, and its flagship show 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview with Harris weeks before the election . The decision to make a deal was widely seen as necessary to receiving FCC approval
The comedian revealed last week his decade-long run as the host of CBS' late night flagship will end next May.
'Insiders' immediately maintained to publications like Puck and Variety the top-rated show was canceled due to being a money pit what was losing $40million a year.
Days before being canned, he took a swipe at his Paramount bosses on-air - fueling speculation the show's cancellation was not due to finances.
Still, the $16million sum secured in the settlement is only slightly more than the $15 million Colbert is said to earn annually for his show.
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