‘The Daily Show’ To Lean Into Correspondent Hosts Over Celeb Guests In 2024 After Emmy Success As Contract Talks Heat Up

EXCLUSIVE: The Daily Show was a surprise winner at the Emmys on Monday night.

The Comedy Central series won the award for Outstanding Talk Series for Trevor Noah’s final season, an emotional end to his seven-year run. Many expected Stephen Colbert to win for The Late Show or Jimmy Kimmel Live! but it was Noah that picked up the award, becoming the first Black man to lead a show to victory in the category.

Afterwards, a number of questions were directed towards Noah and the team about the future of The Daily Show, a fair ask given that it has now been over a year since Noah left the show.

Deadline understands that over the next few months, the focus will be on its correspondents to lead the show through this election year, rather than another phalanx of celebrity guest hosts.

This plays into the idea that the show’s permanent host or hosts could already be on staff, a proposal that has been floated within Paramount.

But the latest potential news team takeover comes at an interesting time for the correspondents as Deadline understands that a number of their contracts are currently up and there are negotiations going on right now to tie them up.

We hear that Ronny Chieng, Desi Lydic and Jordan Klepper are currently in talks for new contracts, while some of the other correspondents such as Michael Kosta are already signed up. Sources have told Deadline that ensuring these four remain on the show is a priority.

Chieng and Lydic joined in 2015, the same year as Noah, with Kosta and Sloan joining in 2017.

Klepper first joined the show in 2014, but left to host a couple of other shows on the network – The Opposition with Jordan Klepper and Klepper – before returning in 2019.

Last year, admittedly disrupted for six months by the writers strike, there were 12 celebrity guest hosts: Leslie Jones, Wanda Sykes, D.L. Hughley, Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, Hasan Minhaj, Marlon Wayans, Kal Penn, Al Franken, John Leguizamo, Desus Nice, Charlamagne Tha God and Michelle Wolf. Jones, Silverman, Penn and Charlamagne hosted twice.

There were also appearances behind the desk from news team correspondents, including Roy Wood Jr., who has subsequently left, Kosta, Chieng, Klepper, Lydic and Dulce Sloan.

Kosta and Chieng co-hosted one night together and Klepper co-hosted with Lydic and Jones.

According to Nielsen’s live plus seven numbers, Kosta was the highest rated of the post-strike wave of guest hosts, bringing in around 550,000 viewers with the news team takeover, which featured Chieng, Sloan, Lydic and Klepper close behind. They were above the likes of Silverman and Jones in their second stints, and Wolf.

“We are grateful to the Television Academy for recognizing our incredibly talented team and want to take this week to honor and thank them. Next week, we’ll be sharing our plans for The Daily Show’s next chapter,” a Comedy Central spokeswoman said.