Trevor Noah’s tenure as host of The Daily Show begins on September 28, and Comedy Central has released the first teaser for the new era, showing Noah taking his seat on the revamped set with the tagline “Same seat, different ass” as Kanye West’s “Power” plays. It’s a good enough ad, especially with Noah’s funny-cute ass wiggle, but what really sticks out is how young Noah is—he’s 31, Jon Stewart was 37 when began hosting. One of the burdens on The Daily Show 3.0 is to capture a younger audience, as Stewart’s audience aged with him, and his demographics skewed older by the end of his reign. But late night television is, inexplicably, obsessed with young viewers—WHY? They don’t watch TV!—so Comedy Central has a handsome young host dressed in a more modern suit than Stewart ever wore. There’s a certain uniform for late night hosts—dark suit/light tie—but Noah’s suit is the reverse of that. It’s a strong visual statement—this is different.
All the late night hosts have a hook for the “youth market”. Jimmy Fallon has viral videos, Jimmy Kimmel has mean tweets, and it looks like Stephen Colbert will be emphasizing the issues younger audiences care about. Right now, Conan O’Brien is the best at getting the young’uns to tune in—he regularly wins the 18-49 demo and his online presence is crazy strong, thanks to video segments like “Clueless Gamer” and his recent trip to Comic-Con. Noah, though, is young enough to actually be part of the coveted 18-49 demo. He’s a Millennial—he’s one of us. (Lainey: that would be Sarah because I am straight up OLD.) It’ll be interesting to see how Noah attempts to woo young viewers back to Comedy Central, and just how much The Daily Show changes in pursuit of a younger crowd.
Attached - Trevor Noah at Apollo in the Hamptons 2015 on Friday.
