After a week off, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show returned with a new episode last night, and according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, viewing numbers were substantially down from Stewart’s most-recent Monday episode.
Focusing on Donald Trump’s civil fraud case, the March 25, 2024 edition of The Daily Show averaged 849,000 total viewers and 167,000 P18-49 viewers at 11 p.m. That’s down -12% in total viewers and -5% in P18-49 demo viewers relative to the show’s the most-recent original episode — Monday, March 11, 2024.
The Daily Show was dark last week.
Last night’s episode was Stewart’s sixth as the Daily Show’s Monday host, and his lowest-rated since returning to the program on a weekly basis last month.
It should be noted that last night’s numbers are far from final. For context, his Monday, March 11 episode averaged 970,000 total live-plus-same-day linear viewers, and improved to 1,996,000 total linear viewers after Nielsen live-plus-three-day data arrived. That’s more than a +100% bump in total viewers. It’s fair to assume the March 25 episode will see similar growth when delayed-viewing data arrives later in the week. Will last night’s episode totals end up surpassing other Stewart episode totals? It’s unlikely, but not completely out of the question.
While last night’s episode struggled relative to Stewart’s previous Monday episodes, it still hauled a far larger audience than what The Daily Show averages on non-Stewart nights. Additionally, prior to the writers’ strike in May, rotating guest hosts for The Daily Show averaged 369,000 live-plus-same-day total viewers per show; when The Daily Show resumed in mid-October after writers’ strike concluded, that number fell to roughly 300,000 viewers on average.
Musician Gary Clark Jr. was Stewart’s Daily Show guest last night. He sat down for an interview with Stewart, and performed the song “Habits” from his new album JPEG Raw. Clark was Stewart’s first celebrity guest since returning to the program.
