Many fans of Jon Stewart’s long run on satirical news programme The Daily Show had been looking forward to his new venture, an animated comedy series for US cable network HBO.

But it has been today announced that development on the new show has been cancelled.

"We all thought the project had great potential but there were technical issues in terms of production and distribution that proved too difficult given the quick turnaround and topical nature of the material," Stewart and HBO said in a joint statement,

The show, which was announced back in November 2015, was intended as a vehicle for Stewart’s current affairs comedy schtick, using state-of-the-art animation technology to generate moving cartoons on the fly to illustrate his monologues.

A press release issued at the time stated;

In his first project for HBO under the new deal, Stewart will view current events through his unique prism. Working with the pioneering cloud graphics company OTOY Inc., he is developing new technology that will allow him to produce timely short-form digital content, which will be refreshed on HBO NOW multiple times throughout the day.

The concept was intended to be in production before the US Presidential election but has been subject to repeated delays.

The deal that Stewart struck with HBO also covers a number of other ideas, such as films as well as other television programme ideas.

HBO has reportedly sunk a good deal of money into developing the pioneering animation technology and will undoubtedly find some way of re-using some of the research effort future productions.