Jon Stewart’s Nielsen Ratings Down 15 Percent; Colbert’s Up 11 Percent

Jon Stewart’s ratings have suffered from his long layoff, while Colbert Nation is only getting bigger. We’ve heard that Nielsen ratings for Monday night’s premieres of A Daily Show and The ColberT ReporT reflected our feelings on how well the two hosts responded to the new writerless world. Stewart, who devoted an entire episode to explicating the strike and, seemingly, purging his guilt over appearing without the help of his writers, lost about 10 percent of his total viewers from October averages, from about 1.6 million to about 1.45 million. Meanwhile, Stephen Colbert, who turned in a terrific show, got a ratings boost from his October averages; almost 150,000 more people tuned in to his show than his October averages, an increase of 12 percent.

Sadly, Nielsen does not have the technological capability to measure the number of people who dozed off during Jon Stewart’s show only to be violently awakened by Colbert’s screeching-eagle opening, at which point they fell off their couch in ornithophobic terror.

Full ratings are after the jump.

The Daily Show, October 2007
Rating: 1.3
Viewers: 1,608,000
18–49: 1,056,000

A Daily Show, Monday, January 7, 2008
Rating: 1.1 (-11%)
Viewers: 1,445,000 (-10%)
18–49: 978,000 (-7%)

The Colbert Report, October 2007
Rating: 0.9
Viewers: 1,153,000
18–49: 802,000

The ColberT ReporT, Monday, January 7, 2008
Rating: 1.0 (+11%)
Viewers: 1,297,000 (+12%)
18–49: 889,000 (+11%)

Earlier: ‘The Daily Show’: Jon Stewart Displays His Strike Guilt, Unibrow
Blogging ‘The Colbert Report’ [Daily Intel]