Jon Stewart to Return as Part-Time ‘Daily Show’ Host Through Presidential Election

Jon Stewart is returning as the host and executive producer of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show.” Before you get too excited, the assignment is part-time, and the plan is for him to stay on as host through the November 2024 presidential election cycle, and EP at least through 2025.

Stewart will host the program only on Mondays, but executive produce every episode. The other evenings will be hosted by a rotating panel of the show’s “All-Star Correspondents.” If you’re wondering why Stewart is taking the Monday slot, it’s because that’s traditionally the most-watched “Daily Show” episode of the week, and acts as catch up for all the news that’s gone on over the weekend.

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Although “The Daily Show” began in 1996 with Craig Kilborn as its host, the show rose in the public consciousness during Stewart’s time hosting from 1999 to 2015. Under Kilborn, the show was mostly irreverent and focused on pop culture. Stewart, especially beginning during the Bush administration, made the Comedy Central talk show a heavily political and satirical program, with a bent on skewering both mass news media and politicians. Under his tenure, the show also helped launch several comedians careers, including Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Samantha Bee. Stewart’s work on “The Daily Show” was universally acclaimed, and won him 20 Emmys during his long run.

Stewart departed from “The Daily Show” in Summer 2015, and was replaced by Trevor Noah, who joined the show as a contributor the year prior. Noah exited the series in December 2022. Since then, the stalwart series has been in a bit of a holding pattern; rather than find a new, permanent host for the program, Comedy Central instead opted to turn the series into a platform for a rotating roster of comedians to guest host over the course of 2023. Leslie Jones, Wanda Sykes, D. L. Hughley, Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, Al Franken, John Leguizamo, Marlon Wayans, Kal Penn, Hasan Minhaj, Desus Nice, Michelle Wolf, Charlamagne tha God, and longtime series correspondents Roy Wood, Jr., Jordan Klepper, and Desi Lydic all had turns hosting the show over the course of the year, in between a months-long pause during the WGA strike.

Since leaving the show that made him a household name, Stewart debuted a new show, “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” on Apple TV+ in 2021. The series, which applied a longer-form journalism approach compared to “The Daily Show,” was canceled after two seasons, reportedly due to Apple disagreeing with the show’s coverage of artificial intelligence.

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