Last night’s Jon Stewart-led Daily Show delivered mixed results in the Nielsen ratings department. The April 15 episode delivered week-to-week gains in total viewers, but lost viewers in the key 18-49 demo.
Per Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, The Daily Show averaged 742,000 total viewers this past Monday at 11 p.m. ET. That represents an +11% improvement from the previous Monday episode (April 8, 2024), and Stewart’s largest Monday audience in three weeks (since March 25, 2024). However, last night’s episode averaged just 111,000 P18-49 viewers, which is -13% from the previous Monday, and Stewart’s smallest P18-49 audience since returning to the program this past February.
The total viewer and P18-49 averages for April 15 are far from final. Stewart’s Monday, April 8 episode averaged 671,000 total live-plus-same-day linear viewers, and improved to 1,430,000 total linear viewers on Comedy Central after Nielsen live-plus-three-day data arrived. That’s more than a +100% improvement in total viewers. One should expect a similar ratings bump when live-plus-three-data for April 15, 2024 cable programming arrives at the end of the week.
Jon Stewart’s Monday Daily Show continues to attract a far larger audience than what the program averages on non-Stewart nights. That said, his return has had a halo effect on the Tuesday through Thursday broadcasts, with rotating guest-hosts averaging upwards of 400,000 live-plus-same-day viewers per episode. Prior to the writers’ strike in May 2023, Daily Show rotating guest hosts averaged 369,000 live-plus-same-day viewers per show; when The Daily Show resumed in mid-October after the strike concluded, that number fell to roughly 300,000 live-plus-same-day viewers on average.
New York Times White House and National Security correspondent David Sanger was Stewart’s Daily Show guest last night. The duo discussed Sanger’s latest book, New Cold Wars.
