Gavin's Blog

I do wish I had satellite sometimes – but I do enjoy watching the Daily Show when I get a torrent or something…of course I’m just saying that because of these figures…

With vulgar fare such as The Man Show, South Park, and Reno 911!, the cable network Comedy Central has earned a reputation for pandering to the Rabelaisian tastes of slackers, stoners, and frat boys. But is that reputation deserved? The Annenberg Public Policy Center set out to answer this question by comparing viewers of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show with those of David Letterman’s and Jay Leno’s (relatively) staid offerings. The findings are surprising. To be sure, Stewart’s viewers are much younger and much more heavily male than his late-night competitors’. But they are also wealthier and better educated: 30 percent have annual household incomes above $75,000, compared with only 25 percent of Letterman’s and Leno’s viewers. Some 39 percent of The Daily Show’s viewers have college degrees, compared with only 29 percent of Letterman’s and 27 percent of Leno’s. In a perhaps not unrelated finding Annenberg discovered that Stewart’s audience is also more politically aware: 46 percent of Daily Show watchers follow politics “most of the time,” versus 38 percent of Letterman watchers and 39 percent of Leno watchers. And when the researchers asked respondents six questions about contemporary politics, Stewart viewers on average answered 60 percent of them correctly; Leno and Letterman viewers on average answered only 49 percent correctly.