“Anyway, like I said before I was interrupted,” Jimmy Kimmel began when he returned to late-night comedy shows with better ratings than he’d seen in years.
Kimmel’s comeback has brought the show’s best viewers in 10 years among adults aged 18 to 49.
The return to ABC followed the decision by the network’s parent company Disney to preempt the late-night comedy show “Indefinitely,” after Kimmel went on his September 16 episode about the defendant murderer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Let’s take a closer look at Jimmy Kimmel’s rebounds.
Note: These numbers are based on Nielsen’s preliminary numbers and do not reflect the streaming view.
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On September 24, ABC shared that 6.26 million viewers were watching “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Despite being an affiliate market owned by media companies, Sinclair and Nexter have refused to broadcast the show. According to ABC, Kimmel’s monologue has received over 26 million views on social media. As of September 25th, the Monologue YouTube post had over 20 million viewers.
The episode scored a rating of 0.87 among adults aged 18 to 49, and is “the best regularly scheduled episode of the show in over a decade.” According to an ABC news release. During the 2024-25 TV season, Nielsen reported, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” It averaged 1.6 million viewers, as quoted by The New York Times and NBC News.
Kimmel performed a clip of President Donald Trump talking to reporters about his late-night host during the episode.
“Everyone can replace him,” Trump said on the recording. “The man had no talent. Kimmel said he was fired and he had no talent.
Kimmel waited for the applause to build up before saying, “Well, I’ll do it tonight.”
Where is Jimmy Kimmel airing?
Kimmel was able to gain a sharp increase in audience despite the show that was not aired on affiliates owned by Nexstar Media or Sinclair Broadcast Group.
What did Kimmel say about Kirk?
Disney, the parent company of ABC, stopped production on Kimmel’s show two days after Trump supporters accused Kirk’s assassin of “trying to score political points” from the murders. You can see the show here:
Why was Jimmy Kimmel cancelled?
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Kerr threatened an investigation and urged television stations to drop Kimmel’s show.
“We can do this in an easy or difficult way,” Kerr said.
In a post to X on September 22, Sinclair said he plans to replace the show with a news program, saying “the discussion with ABC is ongoing when evaluating the show’s potential returns.”
Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue on 23/25/9
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Will you ride this wave?
After the first talk of the September 23 monologue with over 20 million YouTube views, Kimmel’s monologue remains higher than that posted in the month before his suspension. The September 24th monologue had 5.9 million views as of 5:30pm Eastern on September 25th.
Kimmel joked about the conditions Disney was imposed to allow returns on the show. Disney lost a subscriber on Kimmel’s suspension.
Contribution: Kelly Lawler
