Kimmel’s Ratings Win Still Will Not Buy a Disney Deal

Disney president Dana Walden would not say on October 1 whether Jimmy Kimmel will still host Jimmy Kimmel Live a year from now. She called him phenomenal, cited rising ratings, then described late night as a hard hour to fund. His current ABC deal runs only through May 2027.

The show just posted its most-watched season in eight years. That trophy is the lever Disney is using to ask for a cheaper hour, not a reason to lock the chair.

Dana Walden Left Kimmel’s Renewal Offstage

Lucas Shaw asked Walden, Disney’s president and chief creative officer, a straight question at a Los Angeles media conference: will Kimmel still be hosting a year from now? She smiled and declined. “Well, I’m certainly not gonna make that announcement with you here today,” she said, adding that Disney Entertainment television chief Casey Bloys would be the one to make news.

Shaw pressed again. Ratings are up, and Kimmel has become a loud voice in the fight over what can be said on television, so why isn’t a new deal a no-brainer?

That’s a good question. And the truth is, it’s a very challenging day part, late night. That’s not to say that Jimmy is not doing a phenomenal job, and his ratings are up, but they’re up relative to a smaller audience that’s watching late night on broadcast television.

Dana Walden, Disney president and chief creative officer, Los Angeles media conference, October 1, 2026

She then drew the line that matters more than the compliment. Clips travel. The money does not. “Obviously, there’s a YouTube channel. Millions of people are watching on demand parts of that show,” Walden said. “That is not a lucrative opportunity for a very premium talk show.”

She said she loves Kimmel, that he is close to people inside Disney, and that the company is trying to honor a long partnership while it “make[s] sense of the business.” The three questions she put on the table were what Kimmel wants, what is right, and what is right for Disney. Only the third one has public math behind it.

2 Million Viewers Did Not Buy a Renewal

Nielsen figures for the 2025-26 season put Jimmy Kimmel Live at 2 million viewers a night. That was the show’s strongest season since 2017-18. In adults 18-49 it averaged a 0.18 rating, its best mark in that group since 2021-22, and it finished No. 1 across late night in the demo.

Premiere week of the new season, the week of September 21, kept the same order. The ABC show averaged 2.29 million viewers and a 0.21 rating in adults 18-49 in live-plus-same-day measurements, ahead of NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon at 1.3 million. It was the second straight year Kimmel won premiere week in total viewers, and the fifth straight year he won it in the 18-49 demo.

Those are real gains, and they still describe a smaller room than the one that used to pay for these shows. Walden said as much in one clause: the ratings are up relative to a smaller audience. Winning 11:35 p.m. now means taking a larger slice of a night fewer people watch on broadcast.

THE 11:35 FIELD, IN HARD NUMBERS

CBS no longer programs a classic 11:35 franchise. Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed leases the hour. That is the comparison Disney can see from Burbank: a ratings win on ABC, and a cheaper model next door.

YouTube Views Do Not Pay the Show’s Bills

Kimmel has been saying the cost problem out loud for a year. At the same conference series on October 8, 2025, he put a number on the desk. “These shows don’t need to cost $120 million and somebody will figure it out,” he said. He argued the original trick of late night was getting expensive talent almost free, as promotion, and that a nine-figure nightly show is a bad fit for that idea.

He also waved off the then-unconfirmed claim that Stephen Colbert’s Late Show was losing $40 million a year. “If they lost $40 million last year they would have sent everyone home already,” Kimmel said. CBS later put that loss on the record. The gap between those two sentences is the argument ABC is now having with Kimmel’s camp.

Ad-tracking firm Guideline has measured how fast the old money left. Combined late night linear ad spend on ABC, CBS, and NBC fell from $439 million in 2018 to $221 million in 2024, nearly 50 percent. That is the pool that still has to cover writers, a band, a stage, guests, and a host. Guideline’s wider file on linear television ad spending shows the same slide across the schedule, not only after midnight.

THE BILL DISNEY IS STARING AT

• Clip audience: Walden said millions watch pieces of the show on demand, and that those views do not fund a premium talk show.
• Ad pool: Guideline logged $221 million in 2024 against $439 million in 2018 for ABC, CBS, and NBC late night combined.
• Host’s own cost line: Kimmel said in 2025 that these shows do not need to cost $120 million a year.
• The ask: One person close to the talks has put ABC’s target at roughly 20 percent off the current budget.

Talks to keep the show past this season stalled in September over that cut. Both sides have said they want a deal. Disney’s television leadership has pushed the show to come down in cost, and the 20 percent figure is still an estimate, not a signed term. Film critic Kyle Smith read Walden’s public hedge as a demand for budget cuts on Kimmel, with cancellation waiting if he refuses. That is a harder sentence than anything Walden said on stage, and it is the reading ABC has not bothered to knock down.

Last December’s One-Year Extension Was the Tell

Kimmel, 58, has hosted the ABC show since 2003 and is in his 24th season. For years the renewals ran three years at a time, including a 2022 deal. On December 8, 2025, ABC announced a one-year extension that carries him only through May 2027. He posted, “I am pleased to announce another no-talent year!”

A one-year paper after a three-year habit is how a company keeps a star without betting on the format. Bill Carter, who wrote The Late Shift, warned at the time not to overread the term. Kimmel, he said, knows he is near the end of the line and does not want the exit to look like a shove from President Donald Trump or anyone else.

KIMMEL’S SHORT LEASH

1. September 2025: ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel Live for six days after a monologue about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Local station groups Nexstar and Sinclair drop the show. It returns later that week.
2. October 8, 2025: Kimmel says late-night shows do not need to cost $120 million, and that somebody will figure out a cheaper version.
3. December 8, 2025: ABC announces a one-year extension through May 2027, down from the old three-year pattern.
4. May 2026: CBS ends The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The network later says the hour was losing roughly $40 million a year.
5. September 2026: Talks on another Kimmel season open. ABC calls reports that this season is the last “speculative” and “inaccurate.” A source close to the talks puts the budget ask at about 20 percent.
6. October 1, 2026: Walden refuses to say Kimmel will still be hosting a year later.

The December deal bought time after the suspension. It did not buy certainty. Last month’s talks are about the next slice of time, and about how much show Disney is willing to pay for.

Stern’s Warning From the Brooklyn Set

Two days before Walden’s appearance, Howard Stern sat with Kimmel in Brooklyn and spoke past him to ABC. “I’ve heard many rumors about this show. I don’t know if they’re true or false,” Stern said. “But I want to say something to ABC, if they’re watching right now: There is no man more loyal to this company than this guy.”

He pointed at the upfronts, the annual sales ritual where Kimmel has long been asked to perform for advertisers. “He has done everything for the company, and I hope that they keep that in mind,” Stern said. Then he turned to the crowd: if something goes wrong, ABC is going to have hell to pay.

Stern said it was probably his last talk-show appearance. The loyalty argument is real inside Disney. Kimmel has hosted the Oscars, still fronts Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and shows up when the company needs a famous face in a ballroom. After the 2025 suspension, some viewers canceled Disney+ and Hulu and talked about skipping the parks. That is a political bill, and it sits on the same ledger as the ad decline.

Treating Walden’s non-answer as a cancellation notice still overreads her. She did not pull the show. She declined to pre-announce a deal that does not exist. ABC already swatted down a September report that this season would be the last. The honest version is colder: Disney will keep Kimmel if the hour can be made to cost less, and it will not pretend YouTube is a substitute for the old spot market.

What a Cheaper Late-Night Hour Already Looks Like

The rest of the daypart has already taken the haircut ABC wants Kimmel to accept. NBC cut The Tonight Show from five original nights to four. Late Night with Seth Meyers lost its house band and now often tapes two episodes on Mondays so the staff works three days. Kimmel has taken summers off since 2020, with guest hosts filling the desk. Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has also moved onto shorter deals.

CBS went further. It stopped making a late-night franchise and rented the clock.

THE CUTS ALREADY ON THE BOOKS

• Fewer originals: The remaining network shows generally tape four nights a week, not five.
• Smaller music: Meyers no longer carries an in-studio band, a line item that used to be part of the brand.
• Shorter contracts: Kimmel moved from three-year papers to a one-year deal; other late-night hosts have followed.
• Guest-host summers: ABC already knows the 11:35 slot can run without Kimmel in the chair for weeks at a time.
• The time-buy: CBS now collects a flat $15 million a year from Allen and lets him sell the ads, a model with no host salary on the network books.

Deadline reporting on Kimmel’s Brooklyn week noted that he still travels with a large staff, which is one of the first costs a 20 percent cut would have to touch. Summer guest hosts, fewer New York trips, and a shorter order are the obvious levers. None of those require firing the host. All of them make the show look less like the 2003 original.

Does Jimmy Kimmel Live Turn a Profit?

Disney has not published a profit figure for Jimmy Kimmel Live. The only late-night P&L a network has put on the record is CBS’s, and that number ended the franchise. In a May 28 statement, CBS said The Late Show had been losing roughly $40 million a year. Allen pays $15 million a year to lease the hour. CBS called that a $55 million swing, from a $40 million hole to $15 million in profit.

The Late Show’s last season averaged 2.14 million viewers before the finale, close to Kimmel’s 2 million. Colbert’s finale drew 6.74 million. Comics Unleashed opened at 878,000. CBS still prefers the rent check. That is the template hanging over ABC, even if Disney has more reason than CBS did to fear a public fight over Kimmel.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The term: Kimmel is contracted through May 2027, after a one-year extension signed on December 8, 2025.
• The on-air line: Walden on October 1 refused to say he will still be hosting a year later.
• The ratings: 2 million viewers and a 0.18 in 18-49 for 2025-26, the show’s best season since 2017-18.
• The denial: ABC called September reports that this season is the last speculative and inaccurate.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The P&L: No Disney figure shows whether Jimmy Kimmel Live makes money, loses money, or how much.
• The 20 percent: The cut target comes from people close to the talks, not from a signed term sheet.
• The walk-away: Walden did not say the show ends if Kimmel refuses a cheaper budget, and she did not say it survives if he accepts.

Kimmel spent late September in Brooklyn with a guest list that ran from Stern to Paul McCartney. Two days after Stern told that crowd ABC would have hell to pay, Walden stood in Los Angeles and would not book the chair for next fall. The ratings argument is over. The price of the hour is not.