Jon Stewart interview with Wired

[chomerics]

It's a pretty funny read. Some people hate Stewart, but he is original, and funny.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/stewart.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Feature:

The TV of Tomorrow

Plus:

TV 2.0

Wake up, television executives of America: Jon Stewart - the wiseacre host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show - knows more about your business than you do. Sure, The Daily Show may just seem like a smart comedy program on basic cable; nothing more than good political satire and a spot-on parody of TV news pieties. But it's also a demonstration of television done right. In the six years since Stewart took over, the audience for The Daily Show has grown almost threefold to 1.4 million viewers a night. It boasts a legion of young, smart fans who are among the most demographically desirable audiences in the industry - further collapsing the caste distinctions between networks and cable. It has raised the bar for tie-ins, with a best-seller (America [The Book] has sold a stunning 2.5 million copies), a hit DVD (Indecision 2004), and - starting in October - a full-fledged spinoff (The Colbert Report). And The Daily Show may be the most popular TV program on the Internet:

Between blog links and BitTorrent downloads, hundreds of thousands of people watch clips online each day rather than on TV. In other words, in form if not in tone, Stewart's Daily Show offers a glimpse of what all TV may one day become: something we can consume in many distillations, at a time, place, and device of our choosing.

Stewart likes to protest that he doesn't pay any mind to this. All he and his crew do, he says, "is try and put out a funny, well-written show about current events." But push a bit and he shows himself to be a savvy observer and critic of his industry. Not entirely surprising: He's spent 15 years in cable and syndicated television, a stint that includes three failed MTV projects. And his scorching critique of television on CNN's Crossfire last fall was so dead-on that the network's president cited Stewart's indictment when he canceled the show in January. Wired sat down with Stewart and Ben Karlin - The Daily Show's executive producer, Stewart's partner at Busboy Productions, and a guy who can finish Stewart's sentences - for a conversation about television: where it might go, and whether Stewart will get there first.

WIRED: There's a lot of chatter out there about how the old model of television - the big box in the living room - is becoming a relic.

Stewart: You mean getting up with your pliers to change the channel? That's outdated?

Yup, it is. And you made this argument yourself in an interview with The New Yorker's Ken Auletta. You said there was an emerging recognition that television was just a delivery system, just a box to be filled with content. "The quality of what you do is not diminished by how far you are up on the dial," you said. "It's all just airtime."

Stewart: I agree. I agree with me.

The Daily Show really exemplifies that sort of new model. It's on a cable network, not broadcast. It's among the most popular shows traded online. People download and watch the whole thing, every day. Were you guys aware of that?

Karlin: Not only am I not aware of that, I don't want to be aware of that.

Well, don't go shutting it down.

Stewart: We're not going to shut it down - we don't even know what it is. I'm having enough trouble just getting porn.

Karlin: If people want to take the show in various forms, I'd say go. But when you're a part of something successful and meaningful, the rule book says don't try to analyze it too much or dissect it. You shouldn't say: "I really want to know what fans think. I really want to understand how people are digesting our show." Because that is one of those things that you truly have no control over. The one thing that you have control over is the content of the show. But how people are reacting to it, how it's being shared, how it's being discussed, all that other stuff, is absolutely beyond your ability to control.

Stewart: I'm surprised people don't have cables coming out of their asses, because that's going to be a new thing. You're just going to get it directly fed into you. I look at systems like the Internet as a convenience. I look at it as the same as cable or anything else. Everything is geared toward more individualized consumption. Getting it off the Internet is no different than getting it off TV.

Isn't that going to pose a challenge to the traditional network model?

Stewart: But we're not on a traditional network: We're on the goofy, juvenile-delinquent network to begin with. We get an opportunity to produce this stuff because they make enough money selling beer that it's worth their while to do it. I mean, we know that's the game. I'm not suggesting we're going to beam it out to the heavens, man, and whoever gets it, great. If they're not making their money, we ain't doing our show.

Let me ask you about the Crossfire thing - not about your critique of that show, but about the reaction to it.

Stewart: Ben was there, by the way. I remember looking out into the audience and seeing his face and realizing, "I guess this isn't going well."

Karlin: Well, we had hand signals, and before the show I made the mistake of saying that this [drawing his finger across his throat] meant "Keep on going, great, do the exact same thing." So I was frantically doing this [draws finger across throat fast].

What was the symbol for stop supposed to be?

Karlin: [Gives thumbs-up.]

Stewart: It was a stupid way to do it.

But the show was a total sensation: Something like 3 million people saw that - but mostly online. Less than a quarter of them saw it on CNN proper. It was huge, phenomenal viral video.

Stewart: It was definitely viral. I felt nauseous afterward.

It was one of the most downloaded clips ever.

Stewart: Really? That's not true. Pamela and Tommy Lee?

OK, maybe that was bigger. But it was amazing that CNN was so clueless about what you gave them. Suddenly, for once, everybody wanted to see Crossfire. They could have taken the show and put it on their Web site, said Click Here, and gotten all this traffic. Instead, everyone had to go through these other sites and back doors to find it.

Stewart: That's really half the fun, isn't it? If CNN had put it on its Web site, it would have lost some of its allure.

Karlin: It's people going, "Holy ****, did you see this?"

It was also a powerful critique of television that people agreed with. It was good television.

Stewart: Boy, I never want to be part of something called "good television." I can tell you that with certainty. That is not a comfortable place to be. But you know what it was? It was a person not playing the role that is prescribed to them under normal circumstances. But I also think that it's fun for people to send those things to each other or check them out.

Karlin: Like when the whole Pat O'Brien thing was happening and his calls went online, and then someone modified them. Those were all over the place, and that by definition has to remain an underground thing. When those types of things are commodified and someone makes money off of them and all the other stuff, something else will just come in to take its place.

Stewart: That's exactly right. It will constantly be co-opted. The guy who did all those pirate media things now works for marketing companies. The first thing marketing people do is go, "Wow, that's really exciting and new and underground and authentic. Let us take it and bring it into our dark hearts." What's nice about the Internet is it's egalitarian. It is democratic in the way that it parcels interest.

What do you make of the quality of television now?

Karlin: I firmly believe that the number of quality programs on television right now is probably higher than it has ever been.

Stewart: It's a constant level of goodness.

What is that level?

Stewart: I'd say it's around 12 percent. I'd say 12 percent goodness, 88 percent crapola. I'm calling it the Goodness Theorem. The goodness is a constant, like pi, and it stays that way. What happens is, as the environment expands around it, the goodness expands at the exact same rate. So the ratio of goodness to crapola remains the same. And the percentage of goodness on network TV is probably the same as 30 years ago.

So applying your Goodness Theorem, if you start putting real content online, then you're going to get more outlets for good stuff.

Karlin: Sure. But it's not done that easily. Obviously, there was this first wave of people during the bubble who thought, "Oh my god, we can put TV on the Internet," and all those people, all that money, went into all these digital things, Internet network plans, everything like that. And they are all pretty much gone. They were probably too soon, and the technology and the bandwidth weren't there. The stuff that works on the Internet right now is short things that don't really need production quality or anything that has an underground guerrilla quality to it.

Stewart: The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom. That's all it is. All those media companies say, "We're going to make a killing here." You won't because it's still only as good as the content.

Yet there's a lot of venture capital going into video-delivery technologies that could allow more shows to go online. Isn't there something promising about new ways to watch television?

Stewart: Sure. But how much do you need TV to be available in convenient form? It already is convenient - we have the DVR. Do you need TV on your watch as you walk from your cell phone to your BlackBerry? At what point do we get saturated enough to say, "OK, I get it! We can get anything we want at any time! Let's go sit around a large table and eat a meal in silence"? Sometimes this ****'s just overkill.

Karlin: I do think it would be cool if at one point your computer and your television are more or less the same device. That's one less big box screen that you have in your house.

Ben, I read something in which you talked about how network television and cable were going to become one and the same.

Karlin: Only in the sense of perception. From a creative standpoint, there used to be this idea that network was the holy grail and that cable was where people went who couldn't work on network. That's the old model. And now that there's just as many quality shows coming out of cable - on FX there's good shows, Comedy Central has good shows, HBO … I think the audience is going to cease noticing, "Oh, that's got the NBC logo on it."

Stewart: It's the idea that the content is no longer valued by where it stands, in what neighborhood it lives. What matters is what you put out there, not its location. I think that's what people have come to learn from the Internet - it doesn't matter where it comes from. If it's good, it's good. Just because our channel is after HGTV and right before Spanish people playing soccer doesn't make it any less valuable than something that exists in the single digits on your television set.

Karlin: The bottom line is network television is going to have to figure out a way to produce its shows less expensively in order to survive and compete. And cable shows are going to have to figure out a way to pay people a little more, probably, as they start getting the same kind of revenue out of their shows that the networks get.

The Colbert Report, it's a spinoff - do you think it'll go the way of Rhoda or the way of Phyllis?

Stewart: We prefer not to think of it as a spinoff. We prefer to think of it as a diverse marketing integration through spore reproduction. Stephen is an unbelievably talented guy, and we sort of did a goof called The Colbert Report. And in the back of our brains we thought, "Oh, that could actually work as a show." News is so much a bifurcated system of people reporting and then these personality-driven universes where people create their own truth, so it makes perfect sense for us to have that and attach Stephen to it.

What are the risks in doing a spinoff?

Karlin: We won't know what to do with the money.

Stewart: Yeah. Actually, that is a risk.

Your contract goes through 2008. How do you think people will be watching the show then?

Stewart: Through their nipples. I believe the show will come in through one nipple and will be broadcast out the other through some sort of projection device.

Karlin: And if you have three nipples, you're basically walking high definition.

Stewart: No, listen. We make the doughnuts; we don't drive the truck. I have no idea. I assume there are people in white lab coats working on that very thing. And I'm sure at some point it will be in liquid form.

[hokie4redskins]

I like Stewart, even though he's a liberal and his bias is obvious even to some of his dingbat viewers, but it's a great show.

[GoCommiesGo]

Stewart is a funny and very intelligent guy. I try to catch the daily show everyday it's just funny.

[RabidFan]

Stewart and his show are hilarious.

[Bang]

Stewart is great. the Daily Show is the best half hour on TV

~Bang

[BIGGS_DADDY]

I like Stewart, even though he's a liberal and his bias is obvious even to some of his dingbat viewers, but it's a great show.

I don't see him as a liberal. I see him as a guy who can find the humor throughout the entire political system, and calls it what it truly is... bulls___.

[Nerm]

I don't see him as a liberal. I see him as a guy who can find the humor throughout the entire political system, and calls it what it truly is... bulls___.

I thought it was obvious that he leans left.

I love the show. He is very funny.

[Chachie]

I like Stewart, even though he's a liberal and his bias is obvious even to some of his dingbat viewers, but it's a great show.

I can't wait for "The Colbert Report." Did any of you see the "bit" they did that will become the new show?

[Destino]

I love comedy central, best channel on TV. Family guy, south park, daily show, and until recently the Chapelle show. I'm even starting to warm up to mind of Mencia.

"what can brown do for you?" hahaha (if you saw the show you'll get it)

[dreamingwolf]

familly guy is fox and cartoon network isnt it?

Stewart is funny, although I get disturbed when people get their news from him.

[Larry]

Stewart is funny, although I get disturbed when people get their news from him.

I saw a clip of O'Reiley trying to beat him up. Stewart kept pointing out that his (Stewart's) audience is better informed (knows more "facts" about current events that're actually true) then O'Reily's audience.

[nuposse87]

O'Reily's show is like haterade, it gets me so angry. Steward is a liberal but he pokes fun at everyone. When he brings on conservative guests though sometimes he has good debates. Lewis Black is hilarious on that show.

[Hooper]

His intellectual beat-down of Bernard Goldberg was one of the best things I have ever seen on TV.

[hokie4redskins]

Don't know if anybody saw tonight's episode with the dude from the Weekly Standard. Pretty heated exchange. Stewart is a flaming liberal. No question. I may be biased myself in this, but he got completely owned by his guest. He knew it too, and attempted to save face by spewing some generic liberal rubbish he knew would get applause from the audience.