The Daily Show
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The Daily Show is an American late-night talk and news satire television program. It airs each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central in the United States, with extended episodes released shortly after on Paramount+. The Daily Show draws its comedy and satire from recent news stories, political figures, and media organizations. It often uses self-referential humor. Jon Stewart hosts the Monday edition. The current team of hosting correspondents for Tuesdays through Thursdays are Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta, Jordan Klepper, Desi Lydic, and Josh Johnson. Troy Iwata and Grace Kuhlenschmidt are non-hosting correspondents. The half-hour-long show premiered on July 22, 1996, and was first hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 17, 1998. Stewart then took over as the host from January 11, 1999, until August 6, 2015, making the show more strongly focused on political and news satire, in contrast with the pop culture focus during Kilborn's tenure. Stewart was succeeded by Trevor Noah, whose tenure began on September 28, 2015, and ended in December 2022. Under the different hosts, the show has been formally known as The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn from 1996 to 1998, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 1999 until 2015, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah from 2015 to 2022. The Daily Show is the longest-running program on Comedy Central (counting all three tenures), and has won 26 Primetime Emmy Awards. The program has been popular among young audiences. The Pew Research Center suggested in 2010 that 74% of regular viewers were between 18 and 49, and that 10% of the audience watched the show for its news headlines, 2% for in-depth reporting, and 43% for entertainment; compared with respectively 64%, 10% and 4%, who said the same of CNN. In 2015, The Daily Show's median age of viewership was 36 years old. Between 2014 and 2023, the show's ratings declined by 75%, and its average viewer age increased to 63. In 2023, the viewership for age range of 25–54 year olds was 158,000 and the viewership for 18–34 year olds was 30,000. Stewart was taken to task in 2004 – by one of the show's creators, and later by Crossfire host Tucker Carlson – for not conducting sufficiently hard-hitting interviews with his political guests, some of whom he may have lampooned in previous segments. During Stewart's appearance on the CNN show Crossfire, where he chastised the CNN production and hosts for not conducting informative and current interviews on a news network, Carlson turned Stewart's criticism back on his guest, suggesting that Daily Show interviews were too uncritical. In rejecting Carlson's criticism, Stewart pointed to the differing roles of news media and comedy. Stewart and other Daily Show writers have generally responded to such criticism by saying that they do not have any journalistic responsibility and that as comedians, their only duty is to provide entertainment. As a new permanent host had not been chosen after Noah's tenure ended in 2022, the show featured a rotating cast of guest hosts, with Jon Stewart returning to host Monday night shows starting February 12, 2024, and through the fall elections, with the correspondents rotating hosting duties for other shows. Stewart later extended his contract into 2026.