The saying goes “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” And that was certainly true in the case for Comedy Central this past Monday, Feb. 12 with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
A combined total of 1.557 million viewers across five Paramount Global-owned networks, according to Nielsen Media Research, watched Stewart’s highly anticipated return to the multiple Emmy-winning program he had hosted from 1999-2015.
The largest bulk of that figure, of course, came from Comedy Central, which was 930,000 viewers – the most for an original Daily Show 11 PM telecast airing on the network since a Trevor Noah-hosted episode back on March 28, 2018 (943,000).
It also delivered a 0.617 rating in the key 25-54 demographic. (Note: a 1.0 rating among 25-54 equates to 1.21 million viewers within the aforementioned age range, meaning approximately 747,000 in the demo on Comedy Central.) This marked the show’s best demo performance since Aug. 28, 2017.
Its share — the percentage of U.S. TV sets in usage at 11-11:51 p.m. that were tuned in to Daily Show – was a 4.21; the largest for the program since Stewart’s farewell back on Aug. 6, 2015.
TV Land (292,000 viewers), Paramount Network (133,000), Pop TV (105,000), MTV (97,000), MTV2, CMT, and Logo offered Daily Show simulcasts from 11:00–11:51 PM as well.
The 8-network simulcast plus Comedy Central’s late-night rerun at 1:25 AM brought the viewer total to 1.85 million overall.
The current cable TV landscape is much different than in 2015. Jon Stewart’s exit (3.47 million on Aug. 6, 2015) and Trevor Noah’s hosting debut (3.42 million combined from multiple Viacom-owned cable networks on Sep. 28, 2015) drew far bigger audiences at a time when there were approximately 100 million U.S. homes subscribed to cable. Nine years later, the amount of cable homes is now about two-thirds of that figure, with younger audiences more preferring cord-cutting or never subscribing to cable TV in the first place.
Within the past year, while Daily Show still attracts decent demos compared to other programs on cable news outlets, it had previously last reached the 500,000-viewer threshold back in Nov. 17, 2022 when former President Barack Obama was a guest with Noah (501;000).
That is, until Feb. 12, 2024.
Trevor Noah’s last episode on Dec. 8, 2022 posted 443,000 viewers.
Of the guest hosts in 2023 who filled in for the departed Noah, former U.S. senator Al Franken had the show’s most-watched week (Mar. 20-23, 2023: 438,000 average) while former Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj (Feb. 27-Mar. 2, 2023: 0.11, A25-54 rating) delivered its best weekly demo of the year.
Stewart has not been technically absent since leaving Daily Show in 2015. He’s an outspoken advocate for 9/11 first responders and war veterans’ health benefits. He also had a brief stint helming The Problem with Jon Stewart for Apple TV+ but to little fanfare on the scarcely-seen streaming service.
Jon Stewart continues to host The Daily Show on Monday nights during this election year. The show’s other correspondents host the program the rest of the week through Thursdays.
