How Late-Night Talk Ratings Cratered During Trevor Noah's ‘Daily Show’ Era

Topline

Trevor Noah is stepping down from hosting The Daily Show on Comedy Central after seven years, he announced Thursday, as viewership for programs across late-night TV face a years-long plummet and as the once-popular heavyweight programs lose their status as must-see TV.

Trevor Noah arrives at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday, Sept. 12, 2022, at the Microsoft … [+] Theater in Los Angeles.

Invision

Key Facts

Noah’s premiere episode as The Daily Show host in September 2015 garnered 3.47 million viewers, directly on par with Jon Stewart’s final episode a month prior.

That year, The Daily Show averaged 1.1 million viewers, lagging somewhat behind broadcast shows like NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (3.78 million), CBS’ The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (3.17 million) and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2.53 million), according to Variety.

Late-night TV underwent a major shift in 2015, with Noah taking over for Stewart, Colbert taking over for David Letterman and James Corden replacing Craig Ferguson on CBS’ The Late Late Show, and ratings overall started to noticeably drop compared to 2014.

By August of this year, The Daily Show averaged just 383,000 viewers, a 65% drop from its 2015 ratings and a far lower figure than any network late-night programs, according to Nielsen ratings published by The Wrap.

Fox News’ Gutfield!—a conservative show that launched last year—averaged 2.19 million viewers last month, followed by Colbert with 2.16 million (down 31% from 2015), Fallon with 1.34 million (down 64%) and Kimmel—which was on hiatus for part of the month—with 1.14 million (down 54%), according to The Wrap.

Big Number

10.1 million. That’s how many subscribers The Daily Show has on YouTube, as the late-night shows draw large online audiences. A segment posted on Wednesday has 1.25 million views. Fallon’s show has 30.2 million YouTube subscribers, Corden’s has 28 million, Kimmel’s has 18.8 million, Colbert’s has 8.97 million and Late Night With Seth Meyers has 4.37 million.

What We Don’t Know

It’s not clear when Noah will depart The Daily Show, and Comedy Central hasn’t announced a successor.

Key Background

Late-night viewership today is nowhere near the massive nightly audiences that Jay Leno and David Letterman were getting in the 1990s: Leno’s Tonight Show reportedly drew 5.8 million viewers in 1995, while Letterman’s Late Show averaged 4.7 million. Declining viewership of late-night TV is a symptom of audiences parting ways with linear programming overall, as streaming becomes a more favorable way to take in content, leading many cable subscribers to cut the cord and causing broadcast networks to lose viewers. For the first time ever in July of this year, streaming viewership surpassed that of cable, Nielsen reported, and in 2021, 4.7 million people got rid of their cable or satellite subscription, representing 5.8% of the customer base, according to a study from Leichtman Research Group. With so much to watch, viewers likely don’t care as much about the late-night wars as they have in the past, like the uproar caused when Conan O’Brien briefly replaced Leno in 2010. And as ratings have plunged, the late-night TV field has also shrunk significantly. Last year, Conan O’Brien ended his 28-year late-night run, the last 11 of which were on cable network TBS. James Corden announced in April he will leave The Late Late Show next year, and in June, TBS canceled Full Frontal With Samantha Bee.

Contra

The futures of just a few big-name shows are secure for now, even as the field contracts. It was rumored that Jimmy Kimmel would depart Live!, but last week he extended his contract with ABC for three years. Last year, Fallon’s Tonight Show was renewed for five years, though the Wall Street Journal reports NBC has considered eliminating the network’s 10 p.m. hour of primetime and moving Fallon up from his current 11:35 p.m. start time. And Colbert’s contract keeps him with CBS until next year.

Tangent

Noah served as the host for the Grammy Awards on CBS for the last two years and hosted this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner. He plans to return to stand-up comedy once he ends his time on The Daily Show.

How Late-Night Talk Ratings Cratered During Trevor Noah’s ‘Daily Show’ Era