Entertainment

DAILY SHOW – JON STEWART THE “IT” BOY FOR CAMPAIGN 2004

IT’S the summer of Jon Stewart. And nothing better symbolizes the ascendancy of Stewart and his “Daily Show” in this political campaign season than the scheduled appearance this Tuesday night of Sen. John Kerry.

It will mark the first time that a presidential nominee has made a campaign stop on the Comedy Central late-night show, and the first such late-night appearance for Kerry since he became the Democratic Party’s nominee.

His handlers have no doubt gotten wind of recent research that shows an increasing number of young viewers are not only tuning in to Stewart’s nightly (Monday through Thursday) newscast spoof for the comedy, but also for the news.

They’re also getting their “news” from the late-night monologues on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on NBC and “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS, according to two recent studies – one from the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People and the Press last January and another from the University of Michigan last week.

Stewart, of course, makes no claim that his show is a news program, but that hasn’t stopped some members of his predominantly young audience from identifying “The Daily Show” as their primary source of political news.

This same group, according to the research, is less likely to read newspapers or watch the so-called “serious” news programs on the broadcast networks or all-news cable channels.

Moreover, many of them say they’re so apathetic about the political process that they don’t even plan on voting.

Enter John Kerry on “The Daily Show.”

“Sen. Kerry is going on the show to appeal to a younger segment of voters who increasingly use shows [such as “The Daily Show”] as a source of political news,” said Nojin Kwak, assistant professor of communications at the University of Michigan who studied the relationship between the late-night comedy shows and the political engagement of younger viewers.

“Their reliance on late-night comedy shows has been increasing,” Kwak said. “Also, a lot of them do not vote, or plan not to vote, so this is a chance for Kerry to talk to a large number of young people who have not yet made up their minds.”

Kerry’s appearance comes six days before the start of the Republican Convention from Madison Square Garden – an event Stewart and his “Daily Show” plan on covering nightly as part of Comedy Central’s “Indecision” election coverage.

In July, “The Daily Show” scored big with its coverage of the Democratic National Convention from Boston.

The show averaged 1.3 million viewers nightly over the four days of the convention. And even more important to this week’s high-profile political guest, “The Daily Show” was an overwhelming favorite among viewers 18-34, averaging about 500,000 viewers in that age group from 11 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. – far more than tuned in to the cable news channels during the same half-hour.

For his part, Stewart tends to downplay the role his clearly satirical show is now playing as a source of news.

“You know, they always talk about young people,” he said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” last June. “The best way to get young people involved in politics – it’s the simplest thing in the world . . . reinstitute the draft. Oh, will voter turnout rise!”

And more recently on Ted Koppel’s “Nightline” July 27 on ABC, Stewart was even more insistent that viewers regard his show as a comedy show, and not a news broadcast.

“We’re reactive – not actual news,” Stew-art said. “If you don’t like Jon Stewart, then you’ll have to go to another comedy program, not another news program.”

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