Ex-Yahoo CEO: I would pay Jon Stewart $100 million per year to relaunch his show

After news broke last night that Jon Stewart is leaving the Daily Show, former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn went on Facebook and said that someone smart should give Stewart $100 million per year to re-launch his show as a "direct-to-consumer" product.

Here's Levinsohn's full note:

Jon Stewart stepping down as host of The Daily Show is paramount to Walter Cronkite stepping down from CBS News.

He is to a generation, the oracle of truth. While certainly left leaning, he always exposed fraud for fraud and called out those who needed it most, with a wry smile and raised eyebrow.

He is complicated - a genius and the best communicator of his generation and I for one will miss him nightly.

That said, he HAS to do a new version of his show for this generation the way it could and should be done -- direct to consumers. He could raise any amount of money to do it and it would be an historic movement, in the way Howard Stern moving to Sirius was a decade ago.

Stewart has the following to shape an industry and I sure hope he pushes the envelope. He's too big a talent to sit on the sidelines too long and he can make an industry change.

I'd pay him $100m a year to go direct and give him equity in his own version of what Viacom is today.

Anyone with me??

The direct-to-consumer works for media stars who are bigger brands than the networks. In 2011, comedian Louis CK sold access to an hour-long special for $5 and generated revenues of over $1 million in 12 days. Political commentator and author Glenn Beck quit Fox News and launched his own network, The Blaze. He reportedly generates revenues between $35 million and $45 million per year.