As he prepares to guest host “The Daily Show” for eight weeks this summer, John Oliver is keeping expectations at a reasonable level.
Oliver, who will begin pinch-hitting for host Jon Stewart on June 10, told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Friday that he doesn’t expect the program — a ratings juggernaut for Comedy Central — to maintain its usual audience levels.
“The ratings are going to go down,” Oliver said. “Ice is cold, and the ratings of this show are going to go down in the summer. Add to that the fact that I’m here, so you’ll have your regular summer decline and that will become a more elemental nosedive. I just need to Sully myself — you know, like Chesley Sullenberger — I’ve got to at least land this show in the water. So I know the ratings are going to go down, I just have to make sure that they don’t collapse.”
Oliver said his chief goal will be to ensure that “the building is not on fire both physically and metaphorically” when Stewart returns. The longtime host of “The Daily Show” is taking the summer off to direct his first feature film, “Rosewater,” an adaptation of a memoir by a journalist who was arrested while covering the 2009 election protests in Iran.
Read Oliver’s entire interview with The Hollywood Reporter here.
