Stelter’s question referred to a four-year production deal that HBO reached with Stewart in November, just months after he left The Daily Show. At the time, HBO revealed that Stewart’s first project would consist of short-form videos using technology from the cloud graphics company Otoy Inc. Plepler today gave a bit more information, explaining that Stewart has a lot of creative control.
“My hunch is it will evolve over time. It will iterate over time,” said Plepler. “He has free rein to do whatever he wants.”
That doesn’t give us much information about what he will do, but we have some idea about what he won’t do. It seems safe to say that Stewart will create videos much shorter than Daily Show episodes.
“Appearing on television 22 minutes a night clearly broke me,” he said in a statement in November. “I’m pretty sure I can produce a few minutes of content every now and again.”
Fans will happily take however many minutes of content he’s willing to provide. At this point, though, it sounds like the former TV show host won’t be returning to television sets — or at least not those without HBO Now streaming capabilities. Ever since the project was announced, HBO has said that it would be made available on the premium network’s standalone streaming service. Stewart die-hards, you may have to subscribe.
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