Jimmy Kimmel returned to the airwaves last night following ABC’s ‘indefinite’ pre-emption of him last week, and the results speak for themselves.
The return of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” drew 6.26 million viewers on Tuesday night, according to early Live + Same-Day Nielsen data – that’s way up from the average 1.77 million in Live+7-day data the series averaged in the second quarter of 2025. The episode earned a 0.87 rating, the highest for a regularly scheduled episode in more than ten years.
The early data doesn’t include streaming, with the episode likely to substantially increase once all is said and done. On top of that, Nexstar and Sinclair are still preempting Kimmel – meaning the episode was not available in around 23% of U.S. households.
Disney says the opening monologue alone has garnered more than 26 million views across YouTube and social platforms. That’s not the end of things. Far from it.
In the hours before Kimmel’s return, Trump posted on the Truth Social network vowing to take action and calling Kimmel’s show an “illegal campaign contribution” before adding, “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do.”
The Federal Election Commission, however, has a news media exemption with the return of Kimmel being seen only as a commercial decision – nothing close to a campaign contribution.
Awful Announcing (via BroBible) reports that ABC could counter TV network affiliates Sinclair and Nexstar pre-empting “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” by pulling SEC football and NFL Monday Night Football from their regions. That claim is being seen as rather speculative at this point.
Deadline also says that affiliate agreements between networks and station groups typically limit the number of times a show can be pre-empted – exceeding that cap could put Sinclair and Nexstar in breach of contract and enable the network to seek legal options and/or even seek new affiliates to replace them. The two companies control roughly 20% of ABC stations across the United States.
The trade also says more than 100 former ABC News employees have signed on to a letter urging Disney CEO Bob Iger to defend free speech and press freedom against political intimidation. In December, ABC settled a defamation suit with Trump for $16 million, with the letter saying that Disney’s settlement has only “emboldened Administration efforts to intimidate the press”.
Finally, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff and eight other senators have sent a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr posing a series of questions about last week’s events reports Variety.
The letter argues that Carr’s actions, along with President Trump’s lawsuits against media organizations and the defunding of public broadcasting, “represent the most blatant and coordinated attack on the free press in American history.” The letter adds:
“The FCC’s regulatory authority over broadcast licenses was never intended to serve as a weapon to silence criticism or punish satirical commentary. Your agency’s mission is to serve the public interest, not to act as an enforcement arm for political retribution against media outlets that displease those in power.”
Carr has downplayed his role in the Kimmel issue this week, saying that he never threatened to pull licenses of Nexstar and Sinclair.
