TV Ratings: Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ Return Hits Multiyear High

The reunion of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show brought a lot of viewers back to the program as well.

Stewart’s first show back as (part-time) host of Comedy Central’s late night flagship drew 930,000 viewers Monday — the most for a Daily Show installment in almost six years (since March 28, 2018, midway through Trevor Noah’s time as host). Simulcasts on other Paramount-owned channels (MTV, Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, Pop, MTV2 and Logo) and a later replay on Comedy Central brought the total for the night to 1.85 million viewers.

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With Stewart — who left the anchor desk in 2015 — hitting familiar comic beats and an aggressive (if brief) marketing push behind his return, The Daily Show also recorded its best same-day rating among adults 25-54 since August 2017 and more than doubled the show’s audience for both the final weeks of Noah’s tenure and the series of guest hosts it featured in 2023.

The final 10 weeks of Noah’s term as host — after he announced he would depart — averaged about 416,000 nightly viewers. Prior to the writers strike in May, a series of guest hosts averaged 369,000 viewers per show; when The Daily Show resumed in mid-October after writers secured a new contract, that average fell to a little under 300,000.

Stewart will host The Daily Show on Monday nights only through the presidential election in November. The show’s team of correspondents will take over hosting duties on other nights, with Jordan Klepper on deck for the remainder of this week.

In primetime Monday, CBS led the night with the debut of its scripted lineup. NCIS led the evening with 7.32 million viewers, its biggest same-day audience in a year (a span of 11 episodes), and The Neighborhood (5.79 million), Bob Hearts Abishola (5.21 million) and NCIS: Hawai’i (5.56 million) all improved on their fall 2022 premieres. On ABC, The Bachelor hit same-day season highs in both total viewers (3.49 million) and adults 18-49 (803,000, or a 0.61 rating).

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