an opportunity to offend as many people as possible with his pompous blather." Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times commented that the show was a welcome addition to the Comedy Central lineup, remarking, "What puts Mr. Colbert over the top is that he is not just impersonating well known television personalities, he also uses parody to score larger points about politics and the press." Nevertheless, there were more negative reviews: USA Today Robert Bianco opined that the show "tried too hard", writing, "Unfortunately, in just two weeks on the air, this half-hour spoof of a no-spin-zone type show has already stretched Colbert's character and the artifice that supports it past its natural breaking point." Later reviews The New Yorker remarked that the show remained funny throughout its entire run. The Colbert Report currently scores favorable reviews, with 65/100 on Metacritic (first season), while its viewers' ranking on the site is higher at 8.7/10. In a 2009 academic analysis of the show's popularity, Temple University researcher, Heather LaMarre found that the show appealed to both liberals and conservatives, concluding, "there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements". Malcolm Gladwell discussed LaMarre's findings in his Revisionist History podcast, "The Satire Paradox" (2016). Ratings The ratings of The Colbert Report, from its premiere, benefited from the lead-in The Daily Show provides, which at the time of the show's debut averaged 1.3 million viewers per night. Comedy Central had previously struggled to produce a hit program on par with The Daily Show, and were counting on Colbert after a string of failures. The Colbert Report drew 1.13 million viewers for its premiere episode, 47 percent greater than the average for that time slot over the previous four weeks, and 98 percent of the viewership of The Daily Show, which had Comedy Central's second-largest viewership. Averaged over its opening week, The Report had 1.2 million viewers per episode, more than double the average for the same time the previous year, when the time slot was occupied by Too Late with Adam Carolla. The show regularly began attracting over one million viewers with near immediacy. The show also drew more young