On Monday Jon Stewart did something he hadn’t done in nine years: He hosted The Daily Show. His stay will be temporary and limited: He’ll only be there through the election and only on Mondays. Who knows? Perhaps things will get so weird — it’s happened before! — that he’ll decide to stay on. (Or maybe he’ll go back to rescuing animals, another pursuit.) His maiden return drew some sharp reactions, but people were apparently stoked to see him back, at least if you judge the ratings.
Per Deadline, Monday’s episode drew in a ton of viewers. There were 930,000 linear viewers on Comedy Central. Across other stations where it was simulcast — CMT, Logo, MTV, MTV2, Paramount Network, Pop, and TV Land — and incluing repeats, it added another 920,000. That brings it to a total of 1.85 million viewers.
Some other stats: The show had the biggest rating share since 2015, when Trevor Noah took over, with a 4.21. Its ratings were up 110% over Noah’s final episode in 2022. And across social platforms it scored 11.1 million views.
As mentioned earlier, Stewart’s epic opening monologue, which ran some 20 minutes, wasn’t always well-received. He spent the bulk of it slamming not only Trump but Biden, arguing that people should be worried about how old both of them are, at a time when Biden’s age is the only one that turns heads. He didn’t touch enough on Trump’s other, shall we say, worrying qualities, and that he was joining the “Biden is too old” pile enraged some, like the hosts of The View.
Whether or not Stewart really believes the nice current president and the dictator guy are basically the same candidate — which they’re very, very much not — is something we’ll hopefully find out quickly into his nine-month stint.
(Via Deadline)