(Note: I feel this IS relevant in the election season because of the recent discussion about how people are informed or MIS informed regarding presidential politics and who does a good job of enlightening vs. who does a good job of kissing the feet of CORPORATE interests.)
check out these notes and article links:
The Latest TV Ratings10/1/2004
Best Night Ever For ¡°Daily Show¡±
Filed under: Cable Ratings Overnight Ratings¡ª allyourtv @ 3:57 am
Last night¡¯s (9/30/04) post-debate telecast ¡°Indecision 2004¡å presentation entitled ¡°The Bush-Kerry Debate: The Squabble in Coral Gables¡± of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was the show¡¯s best episode ever.
The Daily Show, which ran LIVE on the East Coast, attracted a whopping 2.4 million viewers, smashing its former record of 1.9 million viewers for the John McCain episode on January 21st, 2004.
The Daily Show excelled competitively, winning its timeslot vs. all cable among young adults (18-34) and placing 2nd to Fox News among total viewers (P2+) and Adults 18-49.
The strength of the post-debate episode also propelled The Daily Show to its best week in history, with an average of 1.5 million viewers.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is on track to deliver its best year ever in 2004. The series averages 1.1 million viewers a night, which is up almost +25% vs. viewership at this same point last year.
http://allyourtv.com/latestratings/index.php?cat=5Here's an article about cable news networks causing the demise of rational news coverage in the cable universe--just the point Stewart was trying to make on his "pearls before swine" visit to Crossblab.
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/1/cable-hickey.aspjust to compare Daily Show's record audience with CNN....in 2003 when Cable News had the war to boost viewership, Foxnews averaged 667,000 viewers a day and CNN averaged 536,000. So suck on that, Carlson.