Jimmy Kimmel may finally be approaching the end of his more than two-decade run at ABC. Jimmy Kimmel Live! is rumored to end following its current season, with Kimmel’s existing contract set to expire in May 2027 and reportedly no plans to extend it.
However, Disney-owned ABC is already pushing back against the report, insisting that no decision about Kimmel’s future has been made.
The result is a familiar Hollywood standoff: an entertainment outlet says the decision has effectively been made behind the scenes, while the network publicly says nothing is settled.
If the report proves accurate, Kimmel’s departure would mark another enormous contraction of traditional network late-night television.
Report Says Kimmel’s Contract Won’t Be Extended
Page Six reported that Jimmy Kimmel Live! is expected to conclude in May 2027 after 24 years on ABC.
“His contract is not getting extended,” a source familiar with the situation told the outlet.
That would bring Kimmel’s run to an end following the expiration of the one-year extension he signed with ABC in December 2025.
Kimmel’s previous contract extension, signed in 2022, kept him at ABC for three additional years. When that agreement approached its expiration, however, ABC and Kimmel agreed to only a one-year extension through May 2027.
Jimmy Kimmel in his UK Christmas Address – UK Channel 4
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Now comes the report that there won’t be another one.
ABC says otherwise.
“This information is inaccurate — any reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative,” an ABC spokesperson said in response to the report.
That means Jimmy Kimmel Live! has not officially been canceled, and ABC’s denial needs to be taken into account.
But Kimmel’s future at the network has been an open question for some time.
Even Kimmel Doesn’t Know What Comes Next
Kimmel has repeatedly discussed the possibility of eventually leaving late-night television, and his comments this summer certainly didn’t sound like those of someone planning another decade behind the desk.
“Professionally, I have no idea what I’m going to do after this,” Kimmel told Vulture in June.
“Freedom is what I want more than anything,” he added. “I want to be able to go fishing because the fishing’s good.”
The uncertainty followed one of the most controversial periods of Kimmel’s career.
Jimmy Kimmel on Colbert – YouTube, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
ABC temporarily removed Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its schedule in September 2025 following Kimmel’s false comments surrounding the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Nexstar and Sinclair also pulled the program from dozens of ABC affiliates.
Kimmel eventually returned, and both station groups restored the program, but the episode transformed the comedian’s future into a national political and First Amendment debate.
Three months later, ABC gave Kimmel his one-year extension.
Sources Claim This Isn’t About President Trump
Despite Kimmel’s increasingly political monologues and his long-running feud with President Trump, sources cited in the Page Six report insist politics are not behind the possible ending.
One source claimed new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro is “not afraid of the administration,” while another insisted a decision concerning Kimmel “wouldn’t have anything to do with Trump.
Instead, the report points toward something considerably less dramatic: money.
Jimmy Kimmel speaks to Arnold Schwarzenegger on Jimmy Kimmel Live – YouTube, Jimmy Kimmel Live
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Disney is undergoing another round of corporate restructuring and cost cutting under D’Amaro, and traditional late-night television is becoming increasingly difficult to justify financially.
We’ve already watched another network reach that conclusion.
Stephen Colbert Is Already Gone
CBS ended The Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this year, bringing both Colbert’s tenure and the entire Late Show franchise to an end.
CBS insisted that decision was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” rather than one based on Colbert’s politics or performance.
That announcement immediately raised questions about how long ABC and NBC would continue funding their own expensive nightly programs.
Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert laughing together – YouTube, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
If the report about Kimmel proves correct, we may now have part of the answer.
The traditional late-night format that once produced Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, and countless cultural moments has been steadily shrinking as audiences fragment across streaming, podcasts, YouTube, and social media.
Losing both Colbert and Kimmel within roughly a year would represent a dramatic acceleration of that decline.
Kimmel Has Lost a Massive Portion of His Audience
While recent headlines have celebrated a ratings resurgence for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, those numbers obscure a much uglier long-term trend for the ABC late-night program.
Kimmel has lost a massive portion of his traditional television audience over the past decade.
In 2015, Jimmy Kimmel Live! averaged approximately 2.4 million viewers. That fell to 2.2 million in 2016 and 2017, 2.1 million in 2018, 1.9 million in 2019, 1.8 million in 2020, and just 1.5 million by 2021.
By 2025, Kimmel was averaging approximately 1.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen figures reported by Fox News, representing a decline of roughly 37% from 2015.
The decline among the demographic advertisers traditionally value most was considerably worse.
Danielle Deadwyler with Jimmy Kimmel – YouTube, Jimmy Kimmel Live
Kimmel reportedly averaged nearly 1 million Adults 25–54 in 2015. By 2025, that number had plummeted to approximately 261,000.
That’s a staggering 72% decline in a decade.
Disney’s own numbers paint a similarly difficult picture. The company told CBS News that Jimmy Kimmel Live! averaged just 1.42 million broadcast viewers during the 2024–25 television season.
Kimmel has enjoyed a significant ratings rebound since then, but those numbers come with some enormous caveats.
His September 2025 return following ABC’s controversial suspension became a national news event. The comeback episode attracted 6.26 million broadcast viewers — more than four times the show’s 2024–25 season average. However, the numbers quickly contracted back to normal within a few weeks.
Then came June 2026, when Jimmy Kimmel Live! averaged a record 3.15 million Live+7 viewers and 505,000 Adults 18–49.
But even LateNighter, which reported those record numbers using Nielsen data, pointed to the unusual circumstances behind them.
Jimmy Kimmel jokes that Melania Trump has a “glow like an expected widow” on his show days before an attempt was made on President Trump’s life – YouTube, SkyNews Australia
June was the first full month in which Kimmel no longer faced new episodes of Stephen Colbert at 11:35 p.m. More importantly, ABC gave Kimmel four massive sports lead-ins from the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final.
Those lead-ins made an enormous difference.
During the week of June 1, for example, Kimmel’s total audience jumped 19% while his Adults 18–49 audience skyrocketed 105% as two NBA Finals broadcasts fed directly into the program.
None of that means Kimmel’s recent ratings aren’t real. They are.
But a suspension that turned his return into a national news event, the disappearance of his primary CBS competitor, and enormously valuable sports lead-ins don’t erase what has happened to Jimmy Kimmel Live! over the longer term.
Jimmy Kimmel and Joe Biden – YouTube, Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The show has surrendered more than a third of its total television audience since 2015 and nearly three-quarters of its Adults 25–54 audience.
So while Kimmel may currently be enjoying a late-career ratings bump, ABC and Disney still have to decide whether a temporary resurgence is enough to justify continuing an expensive traditional late-night program whose underlying television audience has dramatically contracted over the past decade.
Jimmy Kimmel’s 24-Year Run Could Be Nearing Its End
Kimmel began hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! in January 2003, making what was originally ABC’s attempt to compete with Letterman and Leno into one of the longest-running programs in the network’s lineup.
But late-night television today looks radically different from the industry Kimmel entered 24 years ago.
The audience is smaller and more fragmented, political commentary has increasingly overtaken the celebrity-and-comedy format that once defined network late night, and younger viewers can watch the handful of segments they’re interested in on YouTube without ever turning on ABC.
Jimmy Kimmel performing a Monologue on his ABC show – X, @kylenabecker
For now, ABC says reports of Jimmy Kimmel Live! ending are premature, but Kimmel’s contract still expires in May. He only received a one-year extension the last time around and Kimmel himself says he doesn’t know what he’ll do afterward.
Now a report says there won’t be another deal.
So Jimmy Kimmel Live! isn’t officially finished yet, but for the first time since Kimmel survived last year’s suspension, there’s a very real possibility that the clock on ABC’s longest-running late-night host is finally approaching zero.
Do you think Jimmy Kimmel will be canceled? Sound off and let us know!
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