Show Summary
Often referred to as “the fake news show”, The Daily Show is an American television series that reports on the shortcomings of the real world with a satirical edge. The show premiered on Comedy Central on 21st July 1996 and is aired four days a week from Monday to Thursday. The show has been created by Madeleine Smithberg and Lizz Winstead with David Javerbaum and Jon Stewart as the executive producers of the show. The series has aired a total number of 1,652 episodes as on 15th January 2009.
Developed in the form of a later night talk show, the series is loosely follows the tradition of TV Nation and SNL’s Weekly Update. The show uses recent news stories, ridicules political figures, media organizations, and often the aspects of the show itself to create comedy. It usually starts with a monologue from the host relating to recent headlines and moves on to feature exchanges with various Correspondents, who use silly or comically inflated takes on current events to entertain the audiences. Finally, there is an interview with a celebrity who can come from any background be it actors and musicians to nonfiction authors and political figures.
During the twelve years for which it has been airing, The Daily Show has been hosted by two people. When the show started in 1996, it was hosted by Craig Kilborn who was also the anchorman of the show till he left in December 1998. He was followed by Jon Stewart who has been hosting the show since January 1999. He made quite a few changes to the content of the show making it focus more strongly on politics and the national media rather than the more character-driven focus which was followed during Kilborn’s time.
According to television ratings, an average of 1.45 to 1.6 million viewers tunes in to watch the show every night from Monday to Thursday. Although the show’s popularity has grown since Jon took over as the host, he has been often criticized for sparing his political guests from hard-hitting enough interviews even though he might have ridiculed some of them in the other segments of the show. In addition, the show has also been criticized for being liberally biased. However, Jon has answered all these critics by saying that he or his team does not have any journalistic responsibility and their main job as comedians is to entertain the audiences.
The show has also been nominated for at least thirty eight different awards which include sixteen Emmy Award nominations. In addition it has also won eighteen other awards including eleven Emmy Awards and one Peabody Award. In 2005 a spin off of the show named The Colbert Report was launched on Comedy Central which is still running successfully back to back with The Daily Show.
