TV viewers really wanted to see Jon Stewart host The Daily Show again

Television’s death has been greatly exaggerated—at least if ratings tell us anything. Hot on the heels of CBS reporting that Super Bowl LVIII was the most watched broadcast in television history, a basic cable network that mostly airs reruns of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and The Office garnered its biggest numbers in five years. Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show pushed Comedy Central toward a rare ratings success for the network. Nearly one million viewers watched The Daily Show live last night, and a total of 1.85 million watched between the broadcast and its encores, making it the most-watched broadcast on Comedy Central in more than five years.

Morbid curiosity over whether or not Stewart still had the juice drove viewers to the show. Of course, this was not a foregone conclusion. It’s not like Stewart’s much-hyped Daily Show follow-up, The Problem With Jon Stewart, was the cultural juggernaut Apple hoped it would be. But the chance to see Stewart back at the desk where he commanded 15 years of political discourse was too exciting to dismiss, apparently.

To the surprise of many, Stewart didn’t miss a beat. His work was so effective that he ended up putting off many voters with his criticisms of President Joe Biden and his complete lack of interest in fighting the perception that he’s too old to run for office again. Moreover, The Daily Show treated Stewart’s return with the self-awareness befitting such an event. After all, it would be easy to treat this like Jay Leno taking back The Tonight Show. But in a field segment toward the end of the show, correspondents Dulcé Sloan and Jordan Klepper expressed the feelings of many skeptical viewers.

“This is the same shit all over again,” joked Sloan. “We need more than just the same show with an old, yet familiar face […] “I mean, they already had this job. Now these old white dudes got to come back and reclaim it. Like, come on, sir, go do something new. It’s so desperate.”

Klepper, too, got a moment on the soapbox to challenge Stewart’s “90s brand of snark and both siderism,” asking him condescending questions like “Did you save democracy yet?” While these jokes don’t erase the criticism, which is valid, they did help ease whatever lingering apprehension anyone in the audience might have toward Stewart’s return.

Comedy Central fumbled the bag twice in their search for a replacement for Trevor Noah. First, the network failed to lockdown Hasan Minhaj before The New Yorker dropped a bombshell report about how the comedian made up situations for jokes. Behind Minhaj was Roy Wood Jr., who probably made the right move to distance himself after the controversy and took himself out of the running. However, at the Emmys, as the staff of The Daily Show collected their Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series, Wood mouthed, “Please hire a host,” on stage. Wood got his wish.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Thankfully for Comedy Central, no one seems to mind.