Jon Stewart's final 'Daily Show' is second-biggest ever

By James Hibberd

August 07, 2015 at 07:17 PM EDT

Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central

Jon Stewart went out on a ratings high note.

His final episode as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show delivered 3.5 million viewers and 1.8 million adults 18-49.

That marks Stewart’s second most-watched episode of all time (the No. 1 telecast was in 2008, which featured President Barack Obama as guest). The finale was also the most social episode in the show’s history, generating 233,000 tweets. The ratings are also firmly higher than the the 2.5 million generated by the final episode of spin-off The Colbert Report.

Perhaps fittingly, The Daily Show concluded the same night as Stewart’s frequent mockery target, Donald Trump, made big headlines while participating in his first Republican presidential debate — which generated an estimated 24 million viewers.

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