The early Nielsen data is in, and viewership for Monday No. 3 of The Daily Show hosted by Jon Stewart is down from the first two Mondays.
Last night’s episode (Feb. 26, 2024), focusing on the crisis in Gaza with guests Murtaza Hussain and Yair Rosenberg, drew 885,000 total viewers and 189,000 P18-49 viewers, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data. That’s -30% in total viewers, and -16% in P18-49 demo viewers compared to live-plus-same-day data from the week prior, and well as -5% in total viewers and -19% in P18-49 viewers versus Stewart’s Feb.12 return episode.
It should be noted that live-plus-same-day ratings are far from final. For context, Stewart’s Feb. 19 Daily Show episode grew by +94% in total viewers (1.26 million to 2.44 million) and +96% in P18-49 viewers (224,000 to 440,000) after Nielsen live-plus-three-day data arrived, and it’s fair to assume the Feb. 26 episode will see similar growth when delayed-viewing data arrives later in the week. Still, even after the delayed data, it’s tough to see this week surpassing either of Stewart’s first two weeks back on Comedy Central.
While the Week Three trend isn’t great, Stewart is still far out-performing what the show had been drawing prior to his return. Prior to the writers’ strike in May, rotating guest hosts averaged 369,000 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.
