Kent Alterman’s job is to bring the funny.
Alterman, the 57-year-old president of content development and original production for Comedy Central, helps oversee such hits as South Park, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.
He’s also leading the network through a major period of transition, as Colbert prepares to exit the network at the end of the year in a move that will shake up late-night TV yet again.
Amid all this activity, Alterman takes time out to discuss the loss of major talent, the promise and pitfalls of social media and his near-miss with Steve Carell.
It seems like everyone wants to grab all of Comedy Central’s top talent.
That’s a good thing. If we had talent that no one was interested in, we probably wouldn’t be doing our jobs very well.
At the end of this year, you will lose Stephen Colbert, who’s leaving to replace David Letterman on CBS. Comedy Central made Colbert a star, so how does it feel to watch him walk away?
On a personal level, it hurts a lot. I’ve known and worked with Stephen for years. I developed and executive-produced a show with him and Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello called Strangers With Candy. We go way back. Definitely, it’s a loss for us, but at the same time, we never expected him to really want to do that character forever.
But Bill ‘Papa Bear’ O’Reilly, Colbert’s inspiration, has been playing his own version of the character on Fox News for much longer.
I have a feeling Bill O’Reilly plays that character 24/7. That is my way of saying that Bill O’Reilly is most likely a more genuine person than Stephen is.
John Oliver also left to go do his own show at HBO.
You have to be realistic. We really didn’t have a slot for him to do his own thing. There’s a limit to how many shows we can do.
How did you feel about reports that NBC News was seriously considering ‘Daily Show’ host Jon Stewart as the next host of that most sober Sunday morning politics show, ‘Meet the Press’?
Jon would never consider himself to be a journalist. He’s the court jester who’s poking fun at the idiocy and hypocrisy in the world. It’s about being funny — that’s what drives him. I certainly didn’t discuss the Meet the Press thing with him, but I would be shocked if that was of interest to him.
What about the idea that a news programme would want to hire a professional comedian as host?
Maybe Gallagher might be available.
You guys are going to replace ‘The Colbert Report’ with a new show starring longtime comedy writer and “black-ish” producer Larry Wilmore. What can you tell us about that?
I can tell you we’re deep into the formative stages of developing it. We’re excited about the possibility of doing something in late night that really is its own thing that you don’t see anywhere else.
Comedy Central hired Chris Hardwick, the host of ‘Talking Dead’ on AMC, to do a social media-themed comedy panel show, @midnight. How’s that worked out?
Every night that there’s an original episode of that show, it’s a top-trending topic. We were surprised how quickly it resonated with our audience.
Some of the most shocking stuff on your network airs on ‘Tosh.0’, the stunts and found-video grab bag hosted by Daniel Tosh. Has there ever been a time you’ve had to rein him in?
I can’t think of anything. Daniel has an incredible sense of knowing where the line is.
A lot of comics, from Michael Richards to Gilbert Gottfried, have been called out on social media for telling what many have deemed inappropriate jokes. Is social media making comedy a more risky business?
One really unfortunate, negative effect that social media has had is it’s breached a really sacred trust of comedy clubs. A comic really needs to have a forum to work out their material. It doesn’t just arrive on Earth fully formed. For comedians to have to worry about who is recording what and where it’s going to go is a real travesty to the pure creativity that can happen in a comedy club.
You help oversee plenty of hits on Comedy Central, but what’s been your biggest professional disappointment?
I was friendly with Steve Carell from the first time I was at Comedy Central. We got to know each other a little bit. Then when I moved to Los Angeles to work at New Line, we would get together to have lunch and talk about ideas. He told me about a character I really liked. But I had a project in development that was too similar to it. So I had to pass on it. Lo and behold, sometime in the future he and Judd Apatow came to pitch what became The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
So, you were the guy who passed on ‘40-Year-Old Virgin’.
Yes.
Did you also turn down the Beatles?
Yeah. I knew they probably had one good record in there, but I just didn’t see the whole career.
