Jon Stewart is staying with 'Daily Show'

NEW YORK - Comedy Central has locked up its biggest star, Jon Stewart, to continue as host of the comic newscast The Daily Show through next year's presidential election.

Stewart and Comedy Central have extended a contract that was to expire this year, said Bill Hilary, the network's general manager. Terms were not disclosed.

"He's very important to us and it's a flagship show," Hilary said Thursday. "We're really pleased that we were able to do this."

Hilary said the deal was actually reached last fall, but news only slipped out this week in connection with AOL Time Warner's sale of its stake in the cable network to Viacom. The two media giants had shared ownership of Comedy Central.

The Daily Show has increased its audience by 10 percent over the past year, mostly among viewers aged 18-to-34 who hadn't shown much interest in topical humor before, Hilary said.

Stewart's name is usually the first mentioned whenever there's talk of a late-night vacancy at one of the broadcast networks.

But Hilary said he believed Stewart, 40, has more freedom at Comedy Central than he would be able to get elsewhere.

NEW YORK - In a message posted in the forum on her official Web site, enigmatic Irish artist Sinead O'Connor has declared that this summer she will seek to discard her celebrity. "As of July 2003 I shall be retiring from the music business in order to pursue a different career," she writes. A spokesperson for Vanguard Records, O'Connor's U.S. label, confirmed to Billboard.com that the message is authentic.

The decision may be linked to a fatigue syndrome that recently caused O'Connor to cancel a string of European performances with U.K. act Massive Attack. Afterward, her site's Webmaster reported that the artist was "advised to rest as much as possible over the next few months."

Before retiring completely, O'Connor has several projects to finish. "The last recordings I will make will be (believe it or not) a track for Dolly Parton's upcoming tribute album and a track for Irish accordionist Sharon Shannon's forthcoming album," she writes. The tracks will be recorded sometime next month.

The final release of O'Connor's career will be a concert and documentary DVD she says will be released in July. Titled Goodnight, Thank You. You've Been a Lovely Audience, the artist says it will feature "tracks from way back," as well as songs from last year's Vanguard album Sean Nos Nua.

Contrary to widely circulated reports, O.J. Simpson said Thursday he won't be the star of a reality television show, but might consider becoming a news commentator for actor Robert Blake's murder trial.

"I have no plans in any way to do a reality show even though people have approached me about it," Simpson said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press from his Miami-area home. "I'm not looking to do anything. I don't have agents out there looking for something for O.J."

As for commenting on the Blake case, he said TV outlets have contacted him, but he declined to name them.

"I'd love to do it," he said. "I think I have a lot of insight. I don't know if he's guilty or not but I know there's no such thing anymore as innocent until proven guilty."

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