A Pew study finds that the bulk of “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report”’s viewers skew overwhelmingly liberal. The Comedy Central faux news shows also boast the youngest audience of any of the major TV news shows.
Forty-three percent of Colbert’s audience is under the age of 30 and 39 percent of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show audience falls into the same demographic. Yet those aged 18-29 comprise 23 percent of the nation’s total population.
Considering that 2009 Rasmussen poll found that 40 percent of young Americans think these shows have been making traditional news sources obsolete, it does not bode well for conservatives’ efforts to reach the young.
By contrast the bulk of Fox News’s audience is 50 and over, comprising 66 percent of Sean Hannity’s audience and 64 percent of Bill O’Reilly’s audience to name a few conservative-oriented programs.
A full 43 percent of the “Daily Show”’s audience define themselves as liberal, and 40 percent of Stephen Colbert’s audience define themselves as liberal.
