Jon Stewart's well-hyped return to The Daily Show is being hailed a ratings success after drawing 930,000 viewers on Monday, the most in nearly six years, though some conservatives and a few liberals are throwing some shade on the achievement.
Stewart left the anchor desk of the Comedy Central show in 2015, but began his reinstatement—on Mondays only—the night after the network touted his return during a Super Bowl commercial.
The comedian was also interviewed on CBS a few times and was featured on numerous commercials, including many that ran on Fox News, a very unusual ad-buy for Paramount, the parent of Comedy Central.
Still, Stewart's Nielsen ratings paled in comparison to Gutfeld!, the Fox News show hosted by Greg Gutfeld that says it competes in the late-night space against not only The Daily Show but also The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Nielsen said that Gutfeld! drew 2.2 million viewers Monday night, about 140 percent more than Stewart drew on Comedy Central. Even when all platforms are included for Stewart—CMT, LOGO, MTV, MTV 2, Paramount, POP, TV Land and a Comedy Central rerun—he still fell short of Gutfeld! by about 350,000 viewers.
In his debut on Monday night, Stewart mocked both President Joe Biden and leading GOP challenger Donald Trump as "similarly challenged" due to their advanced ages for presidential candidates and given their gaffes.
Mixing comedy with some serious analysis, Stewart said "the stakes of this election don't make Donald Trump's opponent less subject to scrutiny."
He added: "If your guy loses, bad things might happen, but the country is not over...and if your guy wins, the country is not saved."
The commentary led correspondent Jordan Klepper to mock his former and current anchor for engaging in "both sides-ism."
While most of the media touted Stewart's return as a huge success, some in conservative media were busy mocking him for losing to Fox News, while some liberals bashed him for attacking Biden.
"Stewart and his late-night peers all veer to the hard left. They praise Democrats, shove negative news about progressives under the TV rug and target Republicans relentlessly," wrote Christian Toto, a conservative who reviews movies and television at HollywoodInToto.com. "Stewart's return was no match for another episode of Gutfeld!"
Republican congressman Wesley Hunt of Texas tweeted: "You know you're in trouble when you're a Democrat President and Jon Stewart turns on you."
Weighing in on the left was former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who said on X, formerly Twitter: "Well after nine years away, there's nothing else to say to the bothsidesist fraud Jon Stewart bashing Biden, except: Please make it another nine years."
And Chris D. Jackson, an election commissioner in Tennessee, said on X: "Wow. So you basically say because Biden is old, he is basically as bad as Trump. Why th[e] F do we never learn in this country? Sorry, but I won't be watching you either."
Billionaire X and Tesla mogul Elon Musk, who has moved from left to right on the political spectrum and has complained of liberal media bias in the past, posted to X an eight-minute clip of Stewart's Monday night show with the text: "Balance and humor return!"
As for Gutfeld, his show airs an hour prior to The Daily Show and 90 minutes before the other three, but that hasn't stopped the Fox News star from calling himself the king of late-night television.
It's also not an apples-to-apples comparison because Gutfled! airs three hours earlier on the West Coast, while the others are late-night offerings coast to coast. Nevertheless, Gutfeld authored a book last year dubbed: The King of Late Night.
Gutfeld!, according to Nielsen, is beating Fallon, Kimmel and Colbert year-to-date, and he's also ahead of Late Night with Seth Meyers and Real Time with Bill Maher.
Comedy Central announced in January that Stewart would return to The Daily Show on Mondays through the presidential election while a team of correspondents handle the rest of the week.
The new lineup replaces former host Trevor Noah after Comedy Central reportedly failed to lure Chris Rock or Amy Schumer to the anchor desk.
Newsweek reached out to Comedy Central for a response to this story.
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