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The Executive Producer of ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘The Colbert Report’ Is Leaving
It’s probably not an analogy Jon Stewart would appreciate, given his politics, but since soon after he began his run on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” in 1999, Ben Karlin has served as Karl Rove to Mr. Stewart’s George W. Bush, if not his Dick Cheney.
So it has come as a shock that Mr. Karlin, an executive producer of both Mr. Stewart’s show and “The Colbert Report,” has decided to leave those jobs at the end of this month.
The sense of intrigue has only been heightened by the way word got out.
Hired by Mr. Stewart, based largely on his work at the satirical newspaper The Onion, Mr. Karlin moved from head writer of “The Daily Show” in the summer of 1999 to executive producer in 2003. While still holding that position, Mr. Karlin, 35, helped Mr. Stewart’s production company, Busboy, start “The Colbert Report,” with Stephen Colbert, for Comedy Central last fall as an executive producer, and then presided over the writing staff for Mr. Stewart’s appearance as host of the Academy Awards telecast earlier this year.
Given their close creative relationship — in recent weeks, Mr. Karlin has also been helping Mr. Stewart develop “Three Strikes,” a pilot about a minor league baseball team for Comedy Central — it came as a surprise when a comedy Web site, theapiary.org, first reported on Thursday afternoon that Mr. Karlin had decided to relinquish his roles as executive producer of both Mr. Stewart’s show and Mr. Colbert’s. Only minutes earlier, Mr. Karlin had informed the staffs of the two shows of his decision, which Comedy Central confirmed late Thursday night in a terse, two-sentence statement issued to the trade journals Variety and Broadcasting & Cable.
Why did the partnership between Mr. Stewart and Mr. Karlin begin to unravel so abruptly? The answer was not entirely clear yesterday. Comedy Central said it had learned of Mr. Karlin’s impending departure only over the last few days.
Representatives for Mr. Stewart, Mr. Colbert, Mr. Karlin and David Javerbaum — a fellow Onion alumnus who has been head writer of “The Daily Show,” and now succeeds Mr. Karlin as executive producer — said yesterday that neither they nor their clients would have any comment on the matter.
The only principal who would come to the phone was Doug Herzog, the president of Comedy Central. In a telephone interview yesterday, he said Mr. Karlin’s main motivation appeared to be a desire to pull back from the grueling pace that he has kept up for more than seven years. Mr. Karlin routinely shuttled the two blocks between Mr. Stewart’s studio in Midtown Manhattan and Mr. Colbert’s, sometimes traveling by scooter as one show ended its taping and the other began.
“Ben has been doing this a long time,” Mr. Herzog said. “It’s a grind. Four nights a week. Forty-some odd weeks a year.”
Mr. Herzog added: “I couldn’t stress more that it’s all amicable.”
An executive involved in the shows who agreed to be interviewed only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak, said Mr. Karlin’s “Daily Show” contract had been up and had not been renewed, though yesterday it was not at all clear why. The same executive said Mr. Javerbaum, who joined “The Daily Show” in 1999, had made known in recent months that he wished to leave “The Daily Show,” but with Mr. Karlin’s departure, he has now been persuaded to stay.
Mr. Karlin, who had relinquished day-to-day management of “Colbert” to other producers in recent months, has not been replaced as an executive producer at “Colbert.” He will continue to be associated with both “The Daily Show” and “Colbert” as a consultant.
An orderly transition is critical to Comedy Central, given how important both shows are to that cable channel. On Monday through Thursday nights, when the shows are broadcast, Mr. Stewart’s show draws an average audience of about 1.6 million viewers, and Mr. Colbert’s 1.2 million, both up substantially from a year ago, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research provided by Comedy Central.
Of no small comfort to Comedy Central is that Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert are actively involved in the writing and producing of their respective shows.
