NBC's real motive in courting Stewart

Or at least my educated guess.

There was news on Monday from Mount Olympus — or what passes for Mount Olympus in beautiful downtown Burbank — that NBC Universal chairman Jeff Zucker "recently wined and dined" satirical news anchor Jon Stewart and his agent in what was obviously an attempt to curry favor with the hottest personality in late-night television.

A network source told Ben Grossman at Broadcasting and Cable magazine that Zucker and his lieutenant, Marc Graboff, "didn’t focus on pitching any specific role at the dinner meeting. ‘They just made their interest known in finding a way to do business together if Jon was ever available.’” Oh, like say … in 2009?? 

You don't need a degree from an expensive four-year college in the Northeast to know what's going on here. But many observers have drawn what I think is the wrong conclusion from NBC's interest in Stewart.

As you know, in two years Conan O'Brien is scheduled to make his move from hosting Late Night to taking over the Tonight Show after the contractually agreed to retirement of Jay Leno. NBC has been grooming current late-late night host Carson Daly for O'Brien's current job. They've given him a band and wacky sketches to do. But despite continuous improvement in the ratings at 2 in the morning, it should be obvious by now that NBC is in for a serious downgrade when Daly moves to 1 in the morning. There is a difference between prodding people past their bedtimes and coddling the insomniacs of America, and Late Night spans that divide. It takes a singular talent to man that bridge and Carson Daly, whatever his other attributes, is not that man.

So that explains why NBC is talking. But why in the world would Jon Stewart be listening? Consider. His show currently airs an hour and a half before Conan O'Brien's show. The number of televisions in use — what industry folks call HUT levels — are much higher at 10 p.m. in the Midwest than 11:30 p.m. Not only that, the Daily Show currently airs four times a day on Comedy Central.   It draws about 2 million people on its first telecast, and by the time those additional audiences are added up, Stewart has been seen by far more people than Conan is on NBC, even on a good night. 

Then there's the fact that NBC is in fourth place, and if it's not careful, it's going to get passed by Univision.  Jimmy Kimmel made a joke last month at the ABC upfront presentation that NBC was really big on its cable networks — in fact the rumor was that NBC was going to become a cable network. 

Where is the upside here for Jon Stewart?

The answer, I think, is in the setup to Jimmy Kimmel's joke. Comedy Central is a general entertainment basic cable channel. NBC has one of those too.  It's called USA Network.  Zucker would love to have  The Daily Show — and, through Stewart's production company, the Colbert Report — on USA Network. With its superior placement on cable systems, and access to the NBC promotional machine, Stewart could become an even bigger star than he is now, without sacrificing any of his cable TV cachet.  And if Jon wanted to produce a prime-time special or (heaven forbid) sitcom, why, NBC Universal would love to have a first look at that, too.

As for Daly, he can continue to churn out cash after Conan churns out even more cash. And then NBC can recruit another quickly fading hipster to take his place at the hour reserved for, in Tom Snyder's memorable phrase, the jokers and the smokers.