Is Tonight The Beginning of the End for The Daily Show?

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Rip New Onion News Network: “We hate Bill O’Reilly and Fox, like, way more than they do.”

That headline above is a joke. Well, maybe. You never know. I hear Stewart is one mean dude. Well, not really. But I like to think so. Well, not really.

The Onion News Network debuts tonight on IFC, bringing its gold-standard brand of satire to cable, where Stewart and Cobert have long reigned supreme like the Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck of the liberal world.

Here is their preview clip, with a real former Fox News anchor:

It’s OK.

Many commentators are echoing James Podsenik in Time: There is room for two good news satire franchises:

But there’s more than one way to spoof a news medium. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both personality-driven; Stewart is our exasperated guide through the excesses of hype and politics, while Colbert performs as a recognizably comic fake pundit. Both shows rely on a personal connection that is as assuring as it is acerbic: the world may be crazy, they say, but at least someone else sees it too.

ONN is darker and more deadpan, an immersive satire that, much like the Onion’s Web and print editions, skewers the medium’s form above all. It’s like a technically impeccable music-parody band: there’s almost no distinguishing it from the original until you listen to the lyrics — for instance, a story about a white teen girl accused of a stabbing who is ordered “to be tried as a black adult.” (“The court has directed the local media to assume she’s guilty.”)

But over at YPulse, they weren’t so sure back in March:

As much as I agree with that line of reasoning, I’m not so sure it should allay the concerns of Comedy Central losing their grasp on the 18-24 set, particularly the guys. To me, those differences in sensibilities reflect a more widespread generation gap between IFC audiences and the Comedy Central crowd. We’ve seen both Stewart and Colbert’s viewers show signs of gradually “graying” since the election: Forbes reports according to Nielsen, as of last May, the median age of “The Daily Show” viewers crept up five years to 41.4, and the median age of “The Colbert Report” viewers was up five years to 38.3. Along with what could be called the Conan effect (beloved in Gen Y hearts, if not in ratings), I suspect that trend is compounded by the fragmentation caused by challengers like the Independent Film Channel (more on that), Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim and Spike TV. I.e., networks willing to air the type of risky “in-your-face” programming that resonates with college students and young adults tuning in for late night television.

Well, we’ll find out starting tonight. Let the cage match begin!

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