Comedy Central may have found its match for "The Daily Show," thanks to one of the fake news show's most recognizable Senior Correspondents.

The opening week of "The Colbert Report," in which ex-"Daily" guy Stephen Colbert trains his satiric sights on the cable-news blowhardism, scored strong ratings for the cable channel, holding on to a good chunk of its lead-in's audience and improving markedly over previous occupants of its timeslot.

The cable channel also got strong opening numbers from the season premieres of "South Park" and "Drawn Together," which beat even some of their broadcast counterparts among the young guys who represent their target audience.

"The Colbert Report," which premiered Monday, Oct. 17, averaged 1.2 million viewers in the post-"Daily Show" spot, more than double the average for the same time a year ago. Its 0.7 rating among adults 18-49 made a similarly big jump over last year.

Colbert's show did a good job of holding onto "The Daily Show" audience, something previous occupants like "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" and "Too Late with Adam Carolla" (which now airs at midnight) couldn't pull off. "The Daily Show" averaged 1.6 million viewers and a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating -- its second-highest marks ever, behind only election week last year.

On Wednesday night, the season debuts of "South Park" and "Drawn Together" averaged 2.4 million viewers, tops on cable for the hour overall and in the adults 18-34 and 18-49 demographics. In an even smaller slice of the demographic pie, the animated block was No. 3 on all of TV among men 18-24, trailing only the National League Championship series on FOX and "Invasion" on ABC.