Tom Freston, who presided over the glory days of MTV, is usually associated with rock ’n’ roll. And he has always been a rock ’n’ roll kind of guy.
But if you’re interested in the history of comedy—especially of the late-night kind—he’s right in the middle of that too.
Jon Stewart knows about that. He credits Freston with being the kind of dynamic, talent-oriented executive who protected and advanced the now-celebrated run of The Daily Show. And it is one of Freston’s points of pride to be part of that history.
In fact, after he was abruptly and nonsensically removed as CEO of Viacom by the ever-unpredictable (another word for nonsensical) chairman of the company, Sumner Redstone, The Daily Show retained a special place in Freston’s heart.
“After I left, I vowed, I’m never going to watch anything from that company again,” he said in a telephone interview. “But I still always watch The Daily Show.”
Freston is out and about talking about his memoir, Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu, which recounts picaresque, arabesque, and burlesque details of a rollicking life—from the markets and backwaters of India and Afghanistan to American concert halls and boardrooms.
But he’s keeping up with his pop-culture interests, including the state of late-night television during its current long-knives battle with the regime in Washington, D.C.
Freston feels a real kinship with that anti-authoritarian movement, based on his MTV leadership days. That freewheeling company, riding the wave of the music-video phenomenon, began branching out in all directions in the 1980s and ’90s, including children’s TV (Nickelodeon) and comedy (Comedy Central).
Even before creating a channel devoted to comedy (originally called Ha!), he said, “We were trying to get our toe into the comedy community. And we tried to figure out what we can do with Jon Stewart.”
Stewart was a stand-up just breaking through. MTV signed him for two shows — a “bad idea” sketch show called You Wrote It, You Watch It, and the first Jon Stewart Show, which conformed to the traditional late-night format.
“Jon was the host. It was not political at all,” Freston said.
After a couple of seasons, the poaching began, as Freston remembers it. Cable TV was not quite the major leagues at that point. Paramount’s syndication arm needed a new host when Arsenio Hall departed. They poached Stewart.
But that show didn’t last. “Jon was floating around,” Freston recalled. And about the same time CBS did its own poaching, lifting Craig Kilborn from The Daily Show, where he was the original host.
“He was doing kind of frat-house humor,” Freston said. When Stewart was approached to succeed Kilborn, he indicated “he didn’t want to do that stupid stuff. He said he wanted to be more politically oriented. He said, ‘It’s going to be fake news.’ That was like the first time you heard that term.”
Doug Herzog, the much-respected president of Comedy Central, at first wondered if political humor fit the brand, Freston said. But he decided, “We love Jon. He’s smart. Let’s give him a little room on the leash.”
Within a few years, The Daily Show was home to a generation of talented comics—Stephen Colbert (who, in fact, preceded Stewart), Steve Carell, Ed Helms, Rob Corddry—winning the Emmy every year and becoming the actual source of news for young audiences. “Jon was the voice of that generation,” Freston said. “Sort of like Walter Cronkite.”
But Freston said the company’s hand in creating a wide swath of late-night stars is even more impressive. “I look at the talent that got their television start,” Freston said. “Bill Maher, Colbert, Samantha Bee.”
And even Jimmy Kimmel, who brought The Man Show to Comedy Central—a show Freston remembers as “really a stupid, doofus thing.”
But look at Jimmy Kimmel now, he said. “When Jimmy Kimmel comes out every night, he gets the longest standing ovation. He’s like the point man for the Resistance.”
All the late-night acts, Freston said, are playing the role that was played a generation ago by music artists who led the protests against the Vietnam War. “They were the vanguard. Now it’s the comedians.”
Kimmel’s survival of the attempt by the Trump Administration to browbeat ABC and the Disney company into shutting down his show is a testament to the loyalty of his audience, Freston said.
“The audience said, ‘Fuck you. You don’t just take shows away from us that we like so much. We have a relationship with this guy. We’re going to cancel Hulu, Disney Plus.’ It did a lot of reputational and economic damage to Disney. He was sort of saved by his fans.”
For how long? Freston said he watches Kimmel some nights and thinks, “He’s going to be in El Salvador before you know it. My God, what he does is just wild.”
But Freston remains at least partially sanguine about the future of late night, and the franchise he knows best.
“These late-night guys are still the faces of these networks,” Freston said. And losing them would further erode the necessity to tune into a broadcast outlet.
Could they exist elsewhere in this online and streaming-dominated video world?
“I could see myself at a program meeting at Netflix going, ‘Let’s get one of these shows. It’s appointment television. I know that’s not what we’re into. But we do live sports now. We’re the biggest network in the land. We can do a whole bunch of different things.’”
As for The Daily Show, Freston said it has definitely become a brand unto itself—one that could endure even if the limping Comedy Central finally fell flat. Some other entity might see the value, especially the idea of adding a show with a built-in following.
“This is going to pick us up subscribers,” he said, speaking as that programming exec again. “I think The Daily Show is a brand, and the brand is bigger than Comedy Central’s brand.”
Freston’s book, Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu, is now in bookstores. Get stories like this in your inbox: Sign up for LateNighter’s free daily newsletter.
