The Daily Show Hits Five-Year Ratings High, Near Record Share

First on LateNighter: The Daily Show delivered its strongest monthly ratings performance in years in February 2026—drawing its largest total audience in more than five years and posting the second-highest ratings share in the show’s 30-year history.

According to Nielsen Live+7 ratings data, the Comedy Central flagship averaged 1.23 million nightly viewers in February. The figure is up 33% from February 2025 and nearly triple the audience the show was drawing at one of its lowest points just over two years ago.

The show also posted a 3.44 share among total viewers in February—a clearer measure of a program’s relative strength in an eroding marketplace. Remarkably, that figure is the highest monthly share the show has recorded in its 30-year history aside from Jon Stewart’s final stretch of episodes in August 2015.

The twin milestones come on the heels of another ratings win for the show: As LateNighter first reported, The Daily Show recently eclipsed its rivals to become late night’s highest-rated show among adults 18–49. February continued that trend, with the show averaging 302,000 viewers in the demo—up roughly 64% year-over-year from February 2025.

The show’s ratings resurgence comes at a time when all traditional late-night programs have seen their linear audiences decline. While some programs have posted occasional year-over-year gains—for example, Jimmy Kimmel Live! this season—The Daily Show‘s longer-term growth trend stands apart, marking a sharp shift from just a few years ago.

Following the departure of Trevor Noah in December 2022, Comedy Central spent much of 2023 cycling through guest hosts while searching for a permanent replacement. The transition coincided with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which disrupted production across late-night television and left The Daily Show off the air through much of the spring and summer.

The ratings reflected the instability. When the show returned in the fall of 2023, its monthly averages dipped to historic lows, hovering around 400,000 viewers.

That trajectory shifted when Jon Stewart returned to the program as a weekly host in February 2024, anchoring Monday night episodes while a rotating lineup of correspondents filled out the rest of the week. That same month, The Daily Show’s average audience more than doubled its December delivery.

Through 2025, the show settled into a new plateau around 900,000 to 1 million viewers per month. Early 2026 has pushed the numbers higher, culminating in February’s 1.23 million average.

In raw audience terms, that places The Daily Show back in the range it occupied during the late 2010s. Typical months in 2018 averaged about 1.27 million viewers, while 2019 hovered around 1.08 million.

Of course, Nielsen figures capture only part of the show’s audience. Like most of its peers, The Daily Show also continues to draw significant digital viewership. On YouTube alone, Stewart’s Monday night monologues regularly generate more than six million views per week—an audience not reflected in traditional Nielsen panel ratings.

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