Jon Stewart’s biting satire may have made his new bosses squirm, but they went ahead and extended the comedian’s run on Comedy Central through December 2026.
The channel’s parent company, Paramount, announced Monday that Stewart will continue to host “The Daily Show” on Monday nights and serve as an executive producer through the end of next year.
Members of the show’s news team will continue to share Tuesday-through-Thursday hosting duties. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.
“Jon Stewart continues to elevate the genre he created. His return is an ongoing commitment to the incisive comedy and sharp commentary that define The Daily Show,” Ari Pearce, Comedy Central’s manager, said in a prepared statement. “We’re proud to support Jon and the extraordinary news team.”
Stewart’s contract was re-upped nearly four months after Paramount-owned sister network CBS notified Stephen Colbert, who rose to fame on “The Daily Show,” that it was dumping his late night show at the end of the season. The cancellation was revealed days after Colbert lambasted a $16-million settlement Paramount agreed to pay President Trump to end a lawsuit over edits to “60 Minutes.” Colbert called the arrangement “a big fat bribe.”
Paramount settled the Trump suit to win approval from the Trump administration of its sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media and RedBird Capital Partners. CBS has said the reason for Colbert’s cancellation was financial, not political, although many people have expressed doubts.
Ellison took ownership of Paramount in August. Stewart has joked that he, too, might be tossed as the company tries to reposition itself to the political center.
Since taking over the media firm that also includes MTV, BET, Nickelodeon and Hollywood-based Paramount Pictures movie studio, the company has made big bets, including agreeing to pay $7.7 billion for rights to UFC fights and $1.25 billion over five years to Matt Stone and Trey Parker to continue creating their “South Park” cartoon for Comedy Central and the Paramount+ streaming service. Ellison and his team also lured Matt and Ross Duffer, the duo behind “Stranger Things,” from Netflix and paid $150 million to buy the Free Press and bring its co-founder, Bari Weiss, to the company as CBS News editor in chief.
Paramount also signed a 10-year lease on a film and television production facility under construction in New Jersey.
Last week, the company began a deep round of layoffs, cutting 1,000 employees with plans to terminate another 1,000 in the coming weeks, in an effort to trim its workforce by 10%. About 100 people from CBS News were among the layoffs.
After a nine-year absence, Stewart returned as a host in February 2024. He had helmed the show for 16 years before taking a break in 2015. His current contract was expiring.
The show was hosted by Trevor Noah until 2022, when he stepped down. That prompted a rotation of guest hosts, including Kal Penn, Charlamagne tha God, Sarah Silverman and Michelle Wolf.
Last month, during a conversation with the New Yorker at a cultural festival, Stewart was asked whether he might stick around longer. “We’re working on staying,” Stewart told the New Yorker’s David Remnick.
The rotation of “The Daily Show” hosts also will include Ronny Chieng, Josh Johnson, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta and Desi Lydic with Troy Iwata and Grace Kuhlenschmidt.
