A chart showing how Jimmy Kimmel’s late-show ratings had been plummeting prior to his indefinite suspension by ABC has gone viral as social media users suggest that he was pulled for more than just his offensive, false comments regarding the assassination of conservative Charlie Kirk.
Posters of the chart, created by LateNighter using Nielsen ratings data, say it shows that Kimmel’s ratings are the “real reason” he was suspended – and that his offensive remarks about Kirk’s assassination simply gave ABC the excuse it was looking for to pull the plug.
According to the chart, Kimmel’s ratings have fallen for 12 straight years, from 0.71 in 2013 after he moved to the 11:30 p.m. slot, down to 0.16 so far this year.
“Down, down, down,” Washington Examiner Political Correspondent Byron York observed in a post of the chart Tuesday.
“And now out,” Brit Hume, Fox News Channel Chief Political Analyst replied to York’s post.
The LateNighter ratings chart is part of its article making the point that the entire network late-night talk show business has been “in free fall” for years.
“Ratings for the big three 11:30pm network talk shows have dropped sharply since 2015,” LateNighter reports, pointing to the chart comparing yearly ratings (2010-2025) of CBS’s “The Late Show,” NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
According to the LateNighter analysis:
- All three shows have lost 70-80% of their audience in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 age range since 2015.
- Network late-night talk shows became unprofitable in 2023.
- Brand advertising expenditures on late-night television in 2024 fell to half the 2018 level.
- “In 2015, the typical 11:30 p.m. talk show brought in well over $200 million in revenue and made a healthy profit.”
- “By 2023, the same show was underwater, and by 2025, losses are well into the tens of millions of dollars.”
To make matters worse, cost-cutting efforts by late-night shows haven’t been able to make up for increased costs, such as salaries. And, episodes of late-night talk shows don’t age well, so they have virtually no market for rerun syndication.
2015 was a key year in the slide, as it experienced a changing of the guard, with Stephen Colbert replacing David Letterman at CBS and Jimmy Fallon replacing at Jay Leno at NBC. And, at ABC, Jimmy Kimmel’s show began airing an hour earlier (11:35 p.m.).
Looking ahead, the analysis used standard exponential smoothing to forecast that “losses for a typical 11:35 p.m. network show could reach $70 million annually by 2030.”
In all, late-night show market realities appear to belie Kimmel’s business strategy of forgoing comedy in order to viciously attack half of his potential viewers.
