Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Sign Through 2012 At Comedy Central
Things you will still be able to count on, for at least a few more years anyway: death, taxes, and The Daily Show covering a presidential election.
After a fairly tumultuous first half of 2010 in the late night world, one short week after Conan O’Brien announced he will be taking the helm of a cable late night show, Comedy Central’s parent MTV Networks made a move to secure its highest profile talent for another few years. Both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will continue hosting their current shows through 2012.
In addressing the elephant in the room (“Why didn’t Comedy Central land the Golden Prize in O’Brien?”), MTV Entertainment’s president told Bill Carter of the New York Times:
“We’re big admirers of Conan here,” [Doug Herzog] said. And the network did have some preliminary talks with Mr. O’Brien’s representatives when he settled his NBC contract – but not about a late-night slot, Mr. Herzog said. “We’ve got Jon and Stephen. Our late-night is filled already.”
The landscape across late night – finally – looks pretty stable for the next few years. Comedy Central’s decision to keep Stewart and Colbert around through the next election (which, given the personalities on both sides of the aisle, should offer comedic gold) is obviously wise. More intriguingly, the demographic competition on the cable nets is likely to be cut right through the middle of Conan’s new show and the audience that has been with Stewart’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for eleven and five years, respectively.
This is where the battle will be come November, a tough time for Conan to come in and try stealing audience given a hotly anticipated midterm election on the books. Maybe Indecision 2010 will be more about the 25-34 set trying to figure out where to flip their Cable boxes come 11 p.m. than we could ever guess.
