While the build-up was slow, the discussion regarding Trevor Noah started in earnest a week before his first show and fully ignited during the broadcast. A snapshot of Twittersphere’s response to the show (the day after being aired on South African TV), showed that nearly 110 000 posts had been made and was still climbing.

Unexpectedly, the @trevornoah account received the most mentions (over 35 000) with @thedailyshow featuring over 23 000 times. In a reversal of numbers with over 13 000 hashtags, #dailyshow came out ahead of #trevornoah which obtained just 2600.

Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) collected over 4700 re-tweets to his “Congratulations to @TrevorNoah tonight. @TheDailyShow's new opening credits now show Earth rotating in the correct direction” while Trevor Noah himself was re-tweeted 3100 times. His first ever guest Kevin Hart tweeted “I couldn't be more excited 2 sit down with @TrevorNoah on @Dailyshow on Monday the 28th. Looking forward to a fun conversation man #Congrats”. It was re-tweeted over 1800 times.

“These stats aptly demonstrate how people are consuming multiple media sources at the same time,” says Marius Greeff, commercial director at SPARK Media. “While watching The Daily Show on TV, consumers are simultaneously engaging with social media platforms on other devices, and in this case, Twitter in particular.”

While there were many complimentary mentions, the South African connection was certainly made as a total of 14% of all tweets made mention of Trevor Noah’s South African background.

“He has certainly put us on the global entertainment map,” concludes Greeff. “We look forward to providing our clients with ongoing Insights that Ignite.”

For more information on SPARK Media, visit www.sparkmedia.co.za or phone +27 10 492 8390. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook or on Twitter.