While there was once a time when a new permanent host of The Daily Show was supposed to be sitting behind the anchor desk by this point (apparently Hasan Minhaj came close to landing the job), that obviously still hasn’t happened. Instead, Jon Stewart has returned to the Comedy Central program to host on Mondays through the election year, and the remainder of the week is hosted by one of the show’s correspondents. Stewart, of course, previously hosted The Daily Show from 1999 to 2015 to great success, and his return to his old stomping grounds comes following the end of his Apple TV+ series The Problem with Jon Stewart after just two seasons.
At the time of this writing, it’s been five weeks since Stewart’s new run on The Daily Show (which can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription) began. So how are things going so far? That’s what we’re here to break down, both in terns of the public’s thoughts and hard numbers. Starting off, though, I need to give my two cents on the subject.
My Thoughts
I began watching The Daily Show with regularity in 2006, meaning Jon Stewart was a integral part of my TV-viewing life for nearly a decade. He was one of my favorite comedic talents in my high school and college years, with his brand of humor easily rubbing off on me, and I’ll fully admit that I got a little emotional watching the final episode of his original tenure back on August 6, 2015. So I was pretty excited to learn in January that Stewart was returning to host on a part-time basis, although I still think the show should finally hire a new, full-time host in 2025.
So far, I’ve been impressed with how Stewart’s been performing on Monday nights. Even after having been gone from The Daily Show almost a decade, it feels like old times, and he hasn’t missed a beat. That’s not to say I agree with everything he has to say politically, but the man is still a maestro when it comes to mixing humor with insightful commentary on current events. I welcome seeing the correspondents continue to guest host, but I wouldn’t mind if Stewart decided he wanted to host an additional night each week.
What Fans Are Saying
Still, I’m just one person; what do others think about Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show? You’re welcome to look around online to see what various TV critics have written on the subject, but as far as general chatter on social media goes, well, that depends on where you align politically. There are certainly plenty of people who are enjoying Stewart being back too, whereas others aren’t too jazzed about it, whether it’s because they align more conservatively or they already disagree with one or more of his positions that he’s talked about over the last few weeks. Here are some examples:
- @nscarlet360: The only place where I can laugh about Trump now is the daily show. You Jon Stewart know how to please the audience! If I was to hear Trump‘s voice anywhere else…
- @omwfeeling: As lame as 'reboots' tend to be, Jon Stewart is absolutely killing it hosting The Daily Show again. I'm finding it hilarious, insightful and incredibly cathartic in this absurd election year.
- @awaisqazi95: So Jon Stewart really saw the pushback to his return to the Daily Show and fell in line. A whole monologue to say “the bad guys are bad” without any reflection on our current leadership…really fell off. Lost his courage.
- @keystonepolitic: I love the daily show what a great show Jon Stewart is a legend
- @MikeGibson83643: Who the F is Jon Stewart anyway….i thought that daily show guy retired years ago. Just go back away!
Comedy is subjective, especially when it’s politically-oriented, so it’s not like Jon Stewart’s Daily Show return was ever going to be welcomed across the spectrum. Still, overall it seems like there are more positive thoughts over him back back then negative ones, so it’s safe to say he’s off to a good start on the critical front.
The Ratings
Reception is one thing, but what about the stats about the people watching? Well, as far as being tuning into the main broadcasts go, Jon Stewart’s return on February 12 was quite strong, with Deadline reporting that the episode averaged more than 3 million viewers in Nielsen’s Live+3 numbers, and was #1 across all cable. For comparison, according to THR, Trevor Noah’s final episode of The Daily Show received 441,500 viewers. It’s also worth noting that accounting for three-day DVR playback, Jon Stewart’s final Daily Show episode from 2015 netted 5.1 million viewers, per Variety. But hey, that was arguably a bigger special occasion and from a time when streaming wasn’t as big a deal, so that bigger figure is to be expected.
Stewart is also looping more viewers to The Daily Show on Mondays compared to the rest of the week. For example, the March 4th episode was watched by roughly 918,000 viewers, as shared by SpoilerTV, whereas the rest of the week, which was hosted by correspondent Ronny Chieng, landed 420,000 on Tuesday, 479,000 on Wednesday and 423,000 on Thursday. Stewart’s latest episode, i.e. March 11, collected 970,000 viewers.
So overall, it’s fair to say that Jon Stewart second go-around at The Daily Show has gotten off to a strong start, and we have a lot more to look forward to from him. At the very least, we can expect him to stay behind the anchor desk until the week of Monday, November 4, though with Election Day happening the day after, I imagine Stewart will make an exception and appear on the Tuesday episode too. But given that The Daily Show takes off for the rest of the year in early-mid December, don’t be surprised if Stewart sticks around for the year’s final episodes too.
After that, Comedy Central will either have to renew its efforts to search for a new permanent Daily Show host or keep this long guest host run going longer without Jon Stewart involved. Either way, we’ll keep passing along updates on how things are going at The Daily Show amidst our coverage of other programming on the 2024 TV schedule.
