It was already a known fact that Jon Stewart has signed an exclusive production deal of four years with HBO last year. However, till now it was not clear about what kind of content will Stewart be creating or featuring in.
Now, during the TCA (Television Critics Association) summer press tour, HBO, president of programming, Casey Bloys revealed some information about the upcoming features of Jon Stewart in regards to the channel.
“The idea is, it will be an animated parody of a cable news network with an onion-like portal,” said Bloys and added, “It’s very much Jon’s voice and tone.” This means, Stewart will be releasing multiple short-form content through various digital platforms of HBO. There might also be a linear television segment.
Bloys also informed that he is opening an animation studio and hoped that the content from Stewart will be rolling out around September to October, and we guess that it would be before the presidential elections of the USA.
Earlier, HBO had acquired a stake in Otoy, the 3D graphics organisation where Stewart will be carrying out his work for this project. “To develop new technology that will allow him to produce timely, current-events-focused short-form digital content, which will be refreshed on HBO NOW, multiple times throughout the day,” said Bloys.
“The idea that Jon wants to do and why he wants to do animation is because it allows him to comment in real time on what is happening in the day’s news events,” said Bloys. However, it is yet unknown what kind of animated project it would be, but we do know that he wants “to comment in real time with what’s happening in the day’s news,” and that “it will be simple animation”.