Numbers Are In: Here’s How Many People Watched Kimmy Kimmels First Show After Being Suspended

Wasn’t expecting this.

After being suspended for over a week, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returned to television on Tuesday night.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! was temporarily removed from the air by the Disney-owned ABC after the host Jimmy Kimmel made distasteful remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

However, his cancellation did not affect his ratings, and Nielsen has reported that he had the highest viewership he has ever had in the last decade.

CNBC reported the numbers:

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returned to air Tuesday night, generating 6.26 million total viewers despite significant preemptions across 23% of U.S. TV households, according to data from Nielsen shared by Disney.

This viewership is exponentially higher than average. During the 2024-2025 season, a period that ran from September to May, Kimmel’s average viewership was 1.42 million.

The pretaped show, which airs on the Disney
-owned ABC, marked the first time host Jimmy Kimmel publicly addressed his suspension from late night following comments he made during a previous show’s monologue that criticized members of President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement for their reaction to conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.

“It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” he said Tuesday night. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”

In addition to linear ratings, Kimmel’s monologue, which clocked in at over 28 minutes, garnered more than 26 million views across YouTube and social platforms, Disney reported Wednesday. The company also touted that Tuesday’s show earned its highest rating among adults aged 18 to 49 years in more than a decade.

″[Trump] tried his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show,” Kimmel joked Tuesday during his monologue. “Backfired bigly.”

Local station owners Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair both said they would preempt the show’s return on Tuesday, meaning many markets across the country were not able to watch the program through local channels. Together, the two companies own roughly 70 ABC affiliate stations. According to Disney and Nielsen that preemption impacted a little less than one-fourth of the country.

“#JimmyKimmel Live” hit 6.3 million views on ABC on Tuesday despite being unavailable in 23% of U.S. households due to preemptions by Nexstar and Sinclair.https://t.co/OS2Et9LsvL pic.twitter.com/6PD3dwjciJ

— Variety (@Variety) September 24, 2025

Next Star is still weighing in on whether to put Kimmels back on the air, per CNBC:

Nexstar Media Group said Wednesday it is continuing to evaluate whether it will bring “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” back to its ABC-affiliate stations, a day after the late night show returned to the Disney
-owned network.

Nexstar’s broadcast TV stations affiliated with ABC did not air Kimmel’s return to late night on Tuesday.

“Nexstar is continuing to evaluate the status of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on our ABC-affiliated local television stations, and the show will be preempted while we do so,” Nexstar said in a statement. “We are engaged in productive discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve.”

Nexstar, along with fellow station owner Sinclair
, said it would preempt Kimmel when Disney returned the show to broadcast on Tuesday, leaving customers in many markets unable to watch the show on their local station.

A Sinclair representative on Wednesday referred CNBC to its statement on Monday, which said the company’s stations would be preempting the show and that “discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return.”

Two of the largest broadcast station owners, Nexstar and Sinclair together own about 70 ABC affiliate stations in the U.S.