Jon Stewart's Exit Couldn't Come at a Worse Time for Comedy Central

It's never a great time to lose your top talent. But for Comedy Central the imminent departure of The Daily Show host Jon Stewart couldn't come at a more challenging time.

In recent years, thanks to the dominance of the pay-TV bundle in American living rooms, cable networks such as Comedy Central were able to sail through programming setbacks with relative ease. Even if one of its top shows got cancelled, a pay-TV network (unlike its brethren in broadcast TV) could rely on steady, unflagging subscription fees from cable and satellite operators to weather a sudden ratings decline and subsequent loss of ad revenue. For years, the strength of the pay-TV bundle helped to protect cable networks through rocky patches while giving them the ultimate luxury in the entertainment business—time to experiment with new shows, new stars, new formats. Even, on occasion, with entirely new identities. (See, for instance, the history of A&E.)