Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Nearly Left Comedy Central in 2012, New Book Reveals

25 November 2016 10:52 AM, PST | Variety - TV News | See recent Variety - TV News news »

A new book that goes behind the scenes of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” reveals just how close the network came to losing both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert when talks to renew their contracts went awry in 2012.

Released earlier this week, Chris Smith’s “The Daily Show (The Book): An Oral History” goes into excruciating detail about how both men quit in the summer of that year when Viacom’s then-ceo, Philippe Dauman, took a hard line in negotiations, but ended up having to phone Stewart to lure the agent he shared with Colbert back to the negotiating table.

Dauman, who was ousted from the top role at Viacom earlier this year, comes off particularly bad in the book, being described by Stewart and others as being blind to the importance of both stars to the network.

“I don’t think Philippe in any way saw what we do as special,” Stewart »

- Andrew Wallenstein

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