The Innovation of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show
tl;dr — culture wins, have a mission, don’t be an incumbent, stay human.
After 16 years as the host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart left a legacy in late night comedic satire. What was it that was so game-changing about Jon and his show? There were certainly plenty of other late night shows that had long tenures: Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show, David Letterman’s The Late Show, and then there was the Late Late Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, LateNight with Jimmy Fallon, and so on. What was it about Stewart’s version of The Daily Show that endured?
1. He encouraged employees to move on
Why is it that so many organizations want to keep their employees in a box? Many seem to desire retention at their current jobs for long periods of time. If the average pay raise is about 3% and the average pay increase when switching jobs is between 10 and 20%, why should anyone stay at their current job for long? People are loyal to people, not companies.
Consider the talents that came on The Daily Show and left to do other things. Watching Jon’s last hurrah was an enlightening reminder of all those who started at The Daily Show who moved on to successful careers. I hold high hopes that Trevor Noah follows in the footsteps of Jon’s other protegé.
Here’s just a sampling:
Steve Carrell — Big screen actor starred in many blockbuster films
Stephen Colbert — First The Colbert Report and now taking over David Letterman’s The Late Show
Samantha Bee — Hosting her own satire show on TBS
Larry Wilmore — Now leads The Nightly Show
Jason Jones — Heading up his own sitcom: Detour
John Oliver — Now leading Last Week Tonight on HBO
Lewis Black — Seriously funny comedian
Michael Che — At The Daily Show for 3 weeks then straight to SNL
The list goes on. This is nothing new. The “Rat Pack,” and the “Brat Pack” have spawned success for its initial members and companies such as PayPal, with its infamous “PayPal mafia,” all have gone on to further success. Peter Thiel and Elon Musk being probably the most famous of the Paypal mafia.
What this comes down to is the culture of the organization. In this case, Stewart fostered a culture of growth, not the growth of revenue or ratings, but the growth of his people. The best example of this was when Stewart took a hiatus in the summer of 2013 and John Oliver took the reigns. It quickly became clear that The Daily Show had become more than Stewart himself, because Oliver and his team did one hellvua job. I almost titled this first point as “He built something bigger than himself.” So yes, culture. It “eats strategy for breakfast.” Every. Single. Time.
2. Unwavering mission and core values: Bullsh!t and hypocrisy be damned
Jon was all anti-bullsh!t, all the time. Sure, his politics were to the liberal left, but he didn’t spare anyone. No one was off-limits for Jon, regardless of their religious, political, or any other affiliation, for that matter. “Bullsh!t is everywhere” is true. Everyone loves it when a bullsh!tter gets called out for their hypocrisy. People watched in droves because of this. Big name news anchors and political pundits such as Wolf Blitzer from CNN and Bill O’Reilly from Fox were forced to start watching and commenting on Comedy Central — a channel that’s about comedy, not politics or “news.”
It’s easier to be 100% true to your values than 98%. The 2% can be a slippery slope.
3. Comedy Central wasn’t an incumbent network
Sure, Viacom is a media mogul, in aggregate, but it’s not ABC, NBC or CBS aka the “big three” (or CNN or FOX). This allowed Comedy Central to take greater risks with its programming. Many organizations believe they have so much to lose and reduce every risk they can before proceeding. This hurts innovation in every possible way. It’s the cake-and-eat-it-too fallacy that many executives want: lots of success with no risk involved. Look at the disruptive framework from Clay Christensen: those who disrupt will not be direct competitors of today. They will be some other upstart that you ignore. Just as Blockbuster Video ignored Netflix’ market entry at first, they paid the ultimate price, and Airbnb wasn’t in the hotel business.. until they were.
As the Daily Show was starting in the early ‘aughts, no one was really paying attention as the audience slowly grew and grew.
Before 2001, the show commanded an audience of about 500,000. By 2008, the program drew about 1.5 million viewers nightly, a high number for a cable show. By the end of 2013 The Daily Show’s ratings hit 2.5 million viewers nightly. In 2001 Jon’s heartwarming post-9/11 speech drew me in and got me watching (like many others) but the intellect, the humor, and the value of anti-bullsh!t continually attracted more audience over time. The advent of social media allowed others to share what they saw and add to the virtuous growth cycle.
4. It’s wasn’t about technology
Innovation is often looked at through the lens of technology as if throwing new technology will solve and disrupt something. This is not the case. Sure there are examples of this being true. Following up on the Blockbuster mention above, DVDs disrupted VHS, and then downloading/streaming disrupted DVDs (it even disrupted the 3-letter acronym trend). The Daily Show didn’t push the boundaries of technology, they used what they had available in a different manner than others. Many organizations miss this point and focus on new technology. Airbnb and Uber didn’t really invent any new tech since web platforms, GPS, and mobile devices have been around for years. They just used them in a different way than others.
It’s textbook Business Model Innovation by Alex Osterwalder.
5. Do what other’s don’t: Remain human
In business, there’s often this undertone of “dispassionate decisions.” Meaning that we need to remove our passions and emotions, those that might affect our decisions, resulting in a knee-jerk decision which may not be fruitful or wise. Journalism fans might suggest that it should be “just the facts” but it is not necessarily the case. Emotions drive us, they always have and always will. They make us human. Tying emotions to events he cared about, which many of us care about also, he got us to laugh, cry or even get angry. From the 9/11 speech I mentioned above to the June 2015 Charleston, SC episode “I didn’t do my job today.” Jon set aside the script and showed how human he was. He wore his heart on his sleeve and wasn’t afraid to let others see how he felt. We shared in all of those emotional journeys as viewers, and it lured us in even more. This was further exemplified during Stewart’s non-Daily Show appearances. Take the 2004 appearance on Crossfire, where he held his stance about that style of show causing extremism in politics, or when he went onto Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor.
Let’s bring this back to your organization — When you think about the organization you work in, how do you add up? How are you encouraging your employees to grow and even *gasp* move on to be successful? What are your institution's core values and have you strayed from them or do you stick to them 100% regardless of the situation? Have you built something that will continue if you left or would it fall apart?
How are you competing? Are you going head-to-head? Do your competitors ignore you? (better hope so) How reliant on new technology are you? Are there other ways to achieve your mission with today’s technology?
Further, how human are you? Vulnerability is a key ingredient to trust in any relationship and creating awesome work. How well do you show and encourage this among your team? I think the biggest thing that Jon Stewart brought was that he cared about something bigger and he didn’t hide it. Many of the other late night shows were about pure entertainment. I’m not suggesting that entertainment is bad, but Stewart and The Daily Show team, had a mission, and they pursued it with humor and intellect. What do you (and your organization) care about?
What Stewart did over his 16-year tenure is remarkable. He changed the political conversation for many in the USA and beyond. Think about that for a second: a comedian changed the political conversation. Not an economist, not a news anchor, not a political scientist, and most definitely not a politician.
How are you changing the conversation in your industry?
