Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ Homecoming Has Ratings Halo Effect

Rick Porter
·2 min read
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Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show on Feb. 12 posted strong ratings — and may have helped the rest of the week’s episodes, as well.

It’s an exceedingly small sample size, but the numbers for the three shows hosted by Jordan Klepper after Stewart’s inaugural show improved substantially on The Daily Show’s recent average. The deal for Stewart’s return will have him hosting on Monday nights each week, with the show’s correspondents taking turns behind the desk for the other three days.

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For Feb. 13-15, Klepper’s turn as host averaged 461,000 same-day viewers — the highest mark in more than 2 1/2 years (since May 17-20, 2021). Adding in the 970,000 Comedy Central viewers for Stewart’s Monday show, The Daily Show drew about 588,000 average viewers for the week, its best showing since March 2021. (Simulcasts of Monday’s show on several other Paramount Global channels, plus a late night replay, brought Stewart’s nightly total to 1.85 million viewers.)

Comedy Central also says that Stewart’s return has risen to 3.06 million viewers across all simulcast networks and the Comedy Central encore after three days of delayed viewing.

Klepper’s three days behind the Daily Show desk last week outpaced the audience for any of the guest hosts the show had in 2023. The top week for the guests was in March, when former Sen. (and Saturday Night Live regular) Al Franken averaged 440,000 viewers for his week. Stints by Klepper and Roy Wood Jr. in the spring each came in at 425,000 viewers; no other guest host averaged better than 400,000 same-day viewers for their weeks.

Noah’s final 10 weeks as host in 2022 drew about 412,000 viewers per night; his farewell week clocked in at 441,500 viewers.

Correspondent Desi Lydic is set to host the Tuesday through Thursday editions of The Daily Show this week.

Feb. 19, 3:20 p.m. Updated with three-day viewing figures for Jon Stewart’s Daily Show return.

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