According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data for the week of April 15, 2024, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show averaged 477,000 total viewers and 97,000 P18-49. That’s a slight gain in total viewers (+0.2%), but a -20% loss in P18-49 viewers from the show’s most-recent week of original episodes (week of April 8).
Jon Stewart’s Monday, April 15 episode, his ninth as The Daily Show Monday host, averaged 742,000 total viewers and 111,000 P18-49 live-plus-same-day viewers; his largest total audience in three weeks, but his smallest P18-49 audience to-date. Those live-plus-same-day averages grew to 1,577,000 total viewers and 262,000 P18-49 viewers after Nielsen live-plus-three-data arrived. When taking the delayed data into account, Stewart’s April 15 episode ends up gaining +10% in P18-49 viewers and +10% in total viewers from the previous Monday episode (April 8). While up from his April 8 episode, Stewart’s April 15 totals are down from every other Monday episode he has hosted since making his Daily Show return this past February.
After Stewart’s Monday episode, Dulcé Sloan hosted the The Daily Show’s Tuesday, April 16 through Thursday, April 18, 2024 episodes. Sloan’s stint in the anchor chair, her first since Nov. 2023, averaged 397,000 total viewers and just 93,000 P18-49 viewers, per Nielsen live-plus-same-day data (Thursday, April 18, 2024 live-plus-three data isn’t available yet). Those numbers represents a -1% decline in total viewers, and a -22% decline in P18-49 viewers from the show’s most recent Tuesday-Thursday original episodes (April 9-11), when Michael Kosta led the proceedings.
Despite this mixed viewership trend, numbers remain relatively strong for The Daily Show in the Jon Stewart Monday era. For reference, prior to the writers’ strike in May, rotating Daily Show guest hosts averaged 369,000 total viewers per show; when The Daily Show resumed in mid-October after writers’ strike concluded, that average fell to roughly 300,000 viewers on average.
