Apple TV+ has had a number of shows cancelled over the years, but no cancellation received more attention than that of Jon Stewart’s show, The Problem with Jon Stewart.
Reports indicated Apple and Stewart’s parting of ways had to do with conflicts over topics the show was going to cover, such as AI and China. Stewart only briefly discussed the cancellation previously. But now, in a new podcast interview, he shares in much more depth about what happened.
The origin story and early demise of Jon Stewart’s TV+ show
On the latest episode of Matt Belloni’s podcast, The Town, Jon Stewart was on to talk about a range of issues, but a major focus was the genesis and abrupt end of his TV+ series.
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. Just there was something about changing that perspective and looking at it from this slightly askew place that felt revelatory to me and kind of excited me again. And that was the Apple Show.
And then Apple said, “We would prefer you not do that.” And then I said, “Oh no, no, but I’m excited again.” And they were like, “Yes, yes, we are less though.” And so, we had some disagreements about the direction of it, the tone of it, the subject matter, etc.
Top comment by freediverx
I disagree with this interpretation of Jon's comments. He seems to be saying that the company hosting the show (Apple in this case) has the right to control the content on the show and he doesn't want to fall into the right-wing trope of labeling that as "censorship". Just as social media companies shouldn't be attacked for "censoring" harmful misinformation and hate speech. The First Amendment applies to the government, not private companies.
But it still seems clear that, while Apple should have known what they were getting when they signed up Jon, the situation reached a point where Apple wasn't comfortable with the truths he was exposing and he certainly wasn't comfortable holding back on the truth, so he left.
There have also been comments suggesting that the show's cancelation was likely the result of both Apple's discomfort with the content AND the show's less than stellar viewership, which is probably not far off the mark.
In any case, Jon should be celebrated as a rare and courageous voice of truth in a media environment that has entirely sold out to the billionaire class. It's a sad state of affairs when a comedian is providing hard-hitting journalism while news organizations are serving empty entertainment and corporate propaganda.
Hearing the origin story of The Problem is interesting, especially as it contrasts with the work Stewart did (and now does again) on The Daily Show.
The point of confusion, which the podcast host Belloni brings up, is what changed in the Apple partnership that led to the show ending.
Belloni: What I never understood was that you were not an unknown entity. They knew exactly what they were buying when they went to the Jon Stewart store, and yet they took the product home, and after a while, it’s like, wait, we didn’t buy this. Wait, he wants to talk about China? He wants to talk about Al?
Stewart: 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. 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.
It sounds like Stewart is being more measured than before in the way he speaks about Apple, and generally understands why the series ended when it did.
Perhaps there’s more to the story that will come out later, but for now this is the best explanation we’ve received yet for why The Problem ended after just two seasons.
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