- Jon Stewart’s Apple TV+ show “The Problem” has ended over editorial disputes, NYT reported.
- Sources told the Times that Apple execs were concerned over show topics regarding China and AI.
- The talk show host reportedly said he wants full creative control over his series.
Jon Stewart’s show on Apple TV+ is reportedly hitting the chopping block over creative differences, The New York Times first reported.
On Thursday, the longtime talk show host and the tech giant reportedly parted ways after Stewart disagreed with Apple over the editorial direction of his show “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” multiple sources familiar with the matter told the Times. Filming on season three of the show had been expected to begin in just a few weeks, one source said.
According to the report, Stewart told his staff that Apple executives were concerned over potential show topics related to China and artificial intelligence; the same concerns also extended to some guests, not named in the Times report, who were expected to appear on the show. One source told the Times that the upcoming 2024 presidential election could have also led to more editorial disagreements.
Apple told Stewart he needed to be “aligned” with the company on the topics he chooses to discuss, but Stewart wanted full creative autonomy over his series, sources told The Hollywood Reporter. In turn, Stewart and Apple reportedly both agreed to go their separate ways.
Apple and Rich Klubeck, Jon Stewart’s agent, didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment before publication.
The apparent decision to end Stewart’s show on Apple’s streaming service may align with Apple’s strategy to maintain its long-standing relationship with China, the tech company’s third largest market.
Apple could have seen its relationship with Stewart — who is known for openly discussing hotly contested political topics like the war over gender, America’s incarceration epidemic, and the military industrial complex on his show — as a potential threat to its Chinese market.
After all, Stewart is no stranger to talking about China in a critical way. On his show earlier this year, Stewart discussed topics like geopolitical tensions between the US and China and the US auto manufacturing industry’s move to China in search for cheap labor and looser business regulations. In June of 2021, Stewart appeared on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” and vocalized his support for the theory that COVID-19 originated from a lab in Wuhan, China, which received pushback from some scientists.
The reported move to part ways with Stewart comes months after Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an earnings call earlier this year that Apple’s services business — which generated a total of $20.9 billion in global revenue for the March quarter — “hit an all-time record” in China during that quarter.
In 2016, Cook had struck a secret $275 billion deal with China for Apple to skirt some of the country’s strict regulatory challenges, The Information first reported in 2021.
Two years later, when Apple began making shows for Apple TV+, company leaders directed show developers to refrain from making China look bad in an effort to protect its ties with the country, BuzzFeed reported in 2019.
Earlier this week, the Apple CEO made a surprise visit to China where he met its commerce minister, Wang Wentao, in Beijing and cheered on gamers at a tournament at an Apple store in Chengdu. The trip came just weeks after Apple’s iPhone 15 — which rolled out in September — reportedly struggled to rack up initial sales at the same pace as its predecessor. According to Counterpoint Research data, which CNBC cited, iPhone 15 sales in China during the first 17 days of its release were down 4.5% compared to sales of the iPhone 14 in the country within that same time frame.
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