Jon Stewart has given his clearest signal yet that he intends to remain behind the desk at The Daily Show.
Speaking Sunday with New Yorker editor David Remnick at the 2025 New Yorker Festival, Stewart indicated that talks are underway about extending his current contract, which expires in December.
In comments first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Stewart said, “We’re working on staying,” when asked if he planned to renew his deal with Comedy Central.
It was a year ago this week that Stewart’s most recent renewal was announced, extending his one-night-a-week hosting duties through December 2025. Since then, much has changed: Donald Trump has returned to the White House, and Paramount Global, Comedy Central’s parent company, has merged with David Ellison’s Skydance.
Onstage, Stewart even referred to Ellison — the new Paramount Skydance CEO and son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison — as his “new boss.”
Referencing Ellison and the new management team at Paramount Skydance, Stewart said, “They’ve already done things that I’m upset about. But then if I had integrity, maybe I would stand up and go, ‘I’m out.’ Or maybe the integrity thing to do would be to stay in it and keep fighting in the foxhole.”
Stewart, who originally returned to The Daily Show in early 2024 to host Monday nights through the presidential election, has been open about the tension between maintaining independence and navigating the shifting politics of corporate media.
“You don’t compromise on what you do, and you do it until they tell you to leave,” he told Remnick.
As LateNighter’s Bill Carter noted late last week, the question of whether Stewart stays or goes looms large over a late-night landscape that’s grown increasingly fraught, with corporate ownership changes, political headwinds, and shrinking linear audiences reshaping the business in real time.
The Daily Show bucked industry trends this past quarter, drawing the show’s largest audience in four years in the advertiser-coveted 18–49 demo. Stewart and team have six more weeks of new episodes planned before the show’s current season ends.
My guess is that Jon is toast at Comedy Central along with Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Anderson Cooper, and others at CBS News. Whiney John DICKerson is leaving at the end of the year. He is insufferable.
You’re a fucking stupid bumplug that doesn’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Go find a brain to replace that rotting fruit pit that you use, and try harder, bitch hole!