Last week, former Daily Show host Jon Stewart had fan hopes up that his particular brand of acerbic satire might return to TV ahead of this year’s chaotic elections, as HBO officials suggested his development deal could soon bear fruit. Now, Stewart himself acknowledges that some of the animated content he’s helped shepherd could arrive, but also that “I am not going to be on television anymore.”

Stewart put in an appearance on a live taping of The Axe Files podcast with David Axelrod (Via UPROXX), covering a wide array of topics, but sadly quelling any hype that return for a new series in the same vein as The Daily Show:

I am not going to be on television anymore … When you’re not on television, you’re still alive. You’re still engaged in the world. I feel more engaged with the world in a real way now than I ever did sitting on television and interviewing politicians.

The four-year deal will see Stewart producing short-form digital content to be showcased on HBO Now, HBO Go and various other platforms, with the aid of cloud graphics company OTOY Inc., though he remains uncertain of an actual timeline:

I don’t know. I’d love to have it ready by September, but not necessarily for the election, as though that’s the D-Day.

It could take some time before we have any metric with which to appreciate Stewart’s new work, but will John Oliver fill HBO’s current events quotient in the meantime?

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