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\n\tJon Stewart<\/a> may still be tossing dynamite with his Monday comedy diatribes against Donald Trump<\/a> on The Daily Show<\/a><\/em>. But that doesn\u2019t mean he thinks the people paying him to do so are filled with the same passion.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI don\u2019t know that you feel the other humans in the room,\u201d Stewart said of management at the current Paramount Global and other entertainment companies, comparing it unfavorably to the leadership of several decades ago. \u201cWorking at Viacom at that time you felt\u2026 the other humans in the room.\u201d Stewart, who began working for Viacom 35 years ago this spring, hosted several MTV<\/a> and Comedy Central<\/a> shows before taking the desk at TDS<\/em> in 1999.<\/p>\n \n\tFormer Viacom chief executive Tom Freston<\/a> agrees. \u201cWe\u2019re drowning in data,\u201d Freston said. \u201cYou put a show up and [executives] have all this data saying, \u2018You shouldn\u2019t do this, you shouldn\u2019t do that.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tStewart was interviewing Freston on stage at the 92NY in New York, part of an informal reunion among the Viacom cable execs from back then that include Judy McGrath, Doug Herzog, Van Toffler and John Sykes. They form a kind of cable-television disruptor gallery, and a number of the group turned up in the audience for the ad hoc reunion.<\/p>\n \n\tPart of the discussion turned to the gloomy state of management by algorithm. \u201cYou seemed to have a connection to the artist and artistry,\u201d Stewart said to Freston. \u201cThe Silicon Valley ethos is more steeped in efficiency. They would walk in and go, \u2018How many people work here? Eight thousand. Good, make it two.\u2019 It\u2019s not really tied to the value.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFreston echoed the thought. \u201cThey didn\u2019t come to their jobs with a desire to do storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tStewart noted he believed it was possible to hew to the principles of good business without totally giving in to the spreadsheet. \u201cYou obviously\u00a0had to stick to budgets and parameters and all of that sort of thing,\u201d he said to Freston. \u201c[But] you seemed to manage from the heart, always being thoughtful.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe comic had just reupped<\/a> as part-time Daily Show<\/em> host for another year, allowing him to maintain the host chair through 2026 and the all-important midterms. Never one to hold his tongue on bosses, Stewart\u2019s closing on a new deal seems to have liberated him to talk even more freely.<\/p>\n \n\tThe comic had pointed words for David Ellison<\/a>, Paramount\u2019s new owner and his current boss, referencing at one point the mogul\u2019s both interest in Warner Bros. and the Ellison family\u2019s seeming pro-White House stance. When Freston said that it \u201clooks like Warner Bros. is going to disappear and get gobbled up by Paramount,\u201d Stewart cut in wryly: \u201cWhich is a fantastic company. I cannot speak more highly of them. I think they should gobble up all of them \u2014 and hand them directly to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAt another point, after Freston noted consolidatory and Wall Street pressures and \u201cbillionaires\u201d controlling media companies, Stewart said: \u201cWe will all end up working for just one person. And it will be an Ellison, most likely.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tStewart made some jokes at his own expense, pausing at one moment to ask, \u201cAm I being fired? Talk-show host is a very tenuous business right now.\u201d He added: \u201cI don\u2019t know if there was a tweet that went out from the FCC right now,\u201d alluding to chair Brendan Carr\u2019s habit of using platforms to target Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> and, on Saturday, Seth Meyers<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe night was filled with nostalgia for a pre-Silicon Valley era of Hollywood leadership, Stewart noting \u201ca time of possibility when the right things were being highlighted\u201d in the 1990s and 2000s era of cable television<\/a>. \u201cThat ended. It\u2019s over. I don\u2019t think that still exists anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFreston doubled down. \u201cIt\u2019s sad. That was a time of optimism,\u201d he said. \u201cThe world [of media] was sort of ascendant and there could be a lot of opportunity to do things. You could make unusual moves. But nowadays, I don\u2019t know.\u201d (Left unsaid were the world of creators, where unusual moves happen all the time, albeit under the watchful eye of the world\u2019s largest companies that platform them. Freston did cite A24, Neon and Searchlight as companies that can offer more handcrafted work in the current climate.)<\/p>\n