Jon Stewart got super-candid about what really ended his Apple TV+ show, The Problem with Jon Stewart, on a podcast Thursday. He previously hinted at creative differences after the show got canceled, but in the podcast discussion, he went into much more depth — even describing the exact moment he knew it was all over.
Stewart made the remarks in a long conversation on the podast The Town with Matthew Belloni.
Jon Stewart reveals more details about how his Apple TV+ show ended
“Creative differences” over covering topics like China and artificial intelligence is accurate shorthand for why The Problem with Jon Stewart got canceled, but it doesn’t really tell the story of what happened. Now Stewart has told it, going into depth on Thursday’s edition of Belloni’s podcast. First they discussed Stewart’s long break after hosting The Daily Show on Comedy Central for many years, and the transition to a new approach with The Problem with Jon Stewart on Apple TV+.
“I started having this idea in the back of my head about sort of the difference between weather and climate when it came to the institutions and the media and all these other different things,” Stewart said. “And The Daily Show had always been a little bit more about the weather. We were kind of every day in there and the genesis of the problem was more about what if we looked at it more as climate systems? What causes the weather? How do these things arrive? And I felt invigorated again by it.
“And then Apple said, we would prefer you not do that. Then I said, oh no, no, but I’m excited again,” he quipped. “And they were like, yes, yes, we are less, though. So, we had some disagreements about the direction of it, the tone of it, the subject matter, etc.”
‘That’s the deal we all make’
Apparently, that was only the beginning of the problematic relationship. After the show’s cancellation, Stewart publicly commented on how Apple didn’t want him saying things that might get him in trouble.
“So it wasn’t that it was going to get me in trouble, I guess. I’m accustomed to working in, for better or for worse, more legacy media. Companies that are invested in content in a way that is what created their brands and what created their names,” he explained on the podcast. “And so for them, the identity of that brand and that content is really important. And establishing it, like for Comedy Central, that kind of maybe sometimes provocative, sometimes explicit content, kind of made their name. Along with South Park and Chappelle and all those guys.”
Apple didn’t censor him
Photo: Apple TV+
Stewart clarified that he doesn’t think Apple censored him.
“Well, first of all, I don’t consider this like they didn’t censor me, it wasn’t free speech. When you work for a corporate entity, that’s part of the deal, even at Comedy Central,” he said. “The deal is I get to do what I want until they think it’s going to hurt their beer sales or whatever it is that they want to sell, and that’s the deal we all make.”
The exact moment he knew it was over
Surprisingly, Stewart even revealed the exact moment he knew his show on Apple TV+ would have to end. He realized “it went south” after Apple’s reaction to Stewart’s interview with economist Larry Summers.
“I had had the idea that using the Fed to whip inflation was ignoring the fact that so much of inflation is for profit. The Fed is a blunt tool, and Larry Summers was very big on, the Fed has to cut interest rates, and if that means we go into a recession, and hey, 10 million people lose their jobs, but hey, utilitarian approach,” he said.
Stewart described how he and Summers debated the issue, with Stewart speaking up for employees as he argued that all that raising of interest rates softens the job market even as corporate profits soar while wages stagnate. In the spirited discussion, he got Summers to concede the point.
“We play the interview for the audience,” he said. “They explode like we just hit a three-pointer at the buzzer.”
But Apple executives reacted differently. Much differently.
“And the Apple executives walk into the dressing room afterwards with a look on their face, and I was like, oh my God, did the factory explode? Like, what happened?” Stewart described. “And they go, are you going to use that Summers thing? I was like, the one where the crowd cheered?”
Watch Stewart’s interview with Larry Summers
Apple was ‘protecting a different agenda’
Stewart said he and Apple went back and forth on the Summers interview for a couple of weeks.
“It was then that I realized, oh, our aims do not align in any way,” Stewart said. “We’re trying to make the best, most insightful execution of the intention that we can make, but they have it, you know, they’re protecting a different agenda. And that’s when I knew we’re in trouble. And it continued that way.”
Stewart talked about getting his host and producer legs under him after season one and hitting his stride more in season two. But that’s when working with Apple got more difficult. But he has no ill will toward the iPhone giant.
“So as season three approached, and then there was the writers strike, when they finally got a hold of the episodes that we were going to be doing, the shit kind of hit the fan,” he said. “And I realized we’re not going to be able to do the season that we planned, and everything was going to be a fight. And I mean this with all due respect, like no malice. They are well within their rights.”
