Jimmy Kimmel was shedding viewers like mad before his comments about Kirk and his shooter. Maybe it was a summer slump, or perhaps the world was getting tired of him. He’s not that interesting, and you have to stay up late to watch a pre-recorded show called Jimmy Kimmel Live, which was taped what, eight hours earlier?
Upon his triumphant Tuesday return, Disney trumpeted the 6.3 million viewers who tuned in to see what he had to say. Look, they said. Kimmel is relevant. No, the controversy was. The murder-worshipping left, some of the interested middle, and a few on the right who felt obligated to cover the likely apology tuned it to beat the internet rush for eyes and clicks from those who couldn’t be bothered.
We know this to be true because by Thursday, he had reportedly dropped to 2.7 million and was expected to continue this decline. Time is precious, even to murder-worshipping leftists. Given all the things they could be doing, like writing pithy antifa and trans slogans on shell casings or spewing hate on social media, Kimmel will end up creeping down the list of things to do.
Sinclair and Nextstar are back to sharing it, but they were showing Jimmy Kimmel live throughout the 2025 ratings collapse. Whether Jimmy and his producers jump desperately back into the hate well in search of outrage ratings remains to be seen, but they like their jobs and they like hating on Republicans, so don’t be surprised if they go fishing for the line they can walk up to without getting preempted again.
This is, after all, ABC and Disney.
It’s not as if they’re going to discover God or decide to promote something other than progressive values. But I suspect his ratings this week will be lower and on their way back down toward a million, give or take. In part because it’s just Kimmel, and then again because the format and time slots no longer mesh the way they did when we had Johnny Carson and David Letterman.
