Photo courtesy Comedy Central

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One month into Chuck Todd's stay at the helm of NBC's Sunday morning news broadcast, Meet the Press, it appears the network may have had other plans when trying to find a new anchor over the summer.

According to New York Magazine, the Peacock was aggressively pursuing comedian Jon Stewart, hoping to revive its flailing weekend program, which has been lagging in the ratings behind competitors ABC's This Week and CBS' Face the Nation.

"They were ready to back the Brinks truck up," a source told the magazine, explaining NBC was essentially offering "anything" to lure Stewart away from The Daily Show, where he's become a regular voice of reason concerning many national headlines, taking the likes of CNN and Fox News to task over their handling of various stories.

Despite its comedic nature, The Daily Show has previously beat out ABC's Nightline for the Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding News and Information Programming.

This past week, Meet the Press debuted a new, IKEA-inspired set, clearly an effort to modernize its image. Of course, having Stewart at the anchor desk might have been a more desirable look.