Democratic politicians are lamenting the news of Jon Stewart’s retirement from the Daily Show, but one rich Obama donor isn’t ready to go quietly into that good night. Digital media mogul Ross Levinsohn, whose only political donations are to President Obama and the Democratic Party, wrote a groveling Facebook post imploring Stewart to stay on the air, saying he would pay Stewart $100 million a year plus equity to do a new version of the Daily Show in a direct-to-consumer format.
The post, which reads like a teenage girl's love letter to Justin Bieber, appears to have been deleted. However, Business Insider has preserved it here:
Jon Stewart stepping down as host of The Daily Show is paramount to Walter Cronkite stepping down from CBS News.
He is to a generation, the oracle of truth. While certainly left leaning, he always exposed fraud for fraud and called out those who needed it most, with a wry smile and raised eyebrow.
He is complicated — a genius and the best communicator of his generation and I for one will miss him nightly.
That said, he HAS to do a new version of his show for this generation the way it could and should be done -- direct to consumers. He could raise any amount of money to do it and it would be an historic movement, in the way Howard Stern moving to Sirius was a decade ago.
Stewart has the following to shape an industry and I sure hope he pushes the envelope. He's too big a talent to sit on the sidelines too long and he can make an industry change.
I'd pay him $100m a year to go direct and give him equity in his own version of what Viacom is today.
Anyone with me??
