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This comedy series was known simply as 'The Daily Show' up until 1999. It is a late-night American satirical TV program. It airs on Comedy Central every Monday through Thursday.
This 30 minute program made its debut on July 21st of 1996. The host at that time was Craig Kilborn. He held the position until December of 1998. In 1999 Jon Stewart took his place as host and gave the show more of an emphasis on politics and national media. This was a stark contrast to the pop culture type of focus given by Kilborn. Today this series is Comedy Central's longest running program. It has had the good fortune to be the winner of 18 Prime-time Emmy Awards.
The program touts itself as being a fake news show. It draws upon satire and comedy it extracts from recent news stories about media organizations, political figures, an sometimes even pokes fun at itself. The usual opening is to let Jon Steward give a long monologue related to current headlines and exchanges with news correspondents. The humor is derived by exaggerating absurd events while Stewart maintains his 'straight man' character. The last segment focuses on an interview with a well-known celebrity. The guests can range anywhere from the political arena to musicians, comedians, or non-fiction authors.
The main audience for this fun and humorous program is youthful. It enjoys audiences from such places as 'Pew Research Center' that gets around 80% of its viewers from a youthful audience between the ages of 18 and 49.
It also brings in 10% of its audience who tune in to get news headlines with 2% tuning in to catch the in-depth reporting. A large segment of 43% are watching purely for the entertainment value. This is in comparison to 64% watching CNN to get their news headlines.
The critics have blasted Stewart for being too soft when interviewing political guests. The audience is well aware that many of these guests have been lampooned in some of the earlier segments.
They way the Daily Show writers and Jon Stewart reply to this is to state they have no journalistic responsibility, and therefore being comedians, they have but one duty and that is to provide their audience with entertainment. Stewart appeared on CNN's 'Crossfire' where he parodied this debate and chastised the entire CNN production along with its hosts for being a news network that did not perform its duty by conducting current and informative interviews.
The monologue is usually followed up by a segment that features some kind of exchange taking place with a correspondent. The correspondent is usually introduced as being the Senior Specialist of the show on whatever the subject matter may be. They are shown either sitting at the desk with Jon Stewart or giving a report from some false location filmed before a green-screen and showing stock footage.
The correspondent segments involve a rotating supporting cast. They consist of showing the audience some members of the show traveling to various locations. They are going somewhere to file comedic reports concerning current news events. They are shown conducting interviews with certain people who are related to the issue being featured.
In the 3rd act of the show they conduct an interview with their featured celebrity guest. They entertain guests from a very broad range of background and cultural sources. They have authors, musicians, actors, pundits, political figures, and athletes from all over. Ever since Stewart has taken the reigns, the show tends to extend away from the celebrity interviews and more toward political pundits and non-fiction authors along with some very prominent elected officials.
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