ABC has indefinitely suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after host Jimmy Kimmel’s Monday monologue falsely linked the Charlie Kirk assassination suspect, Tyler Robinson, to conservative MAGA Republicans. In truth, Robinson never registered to vote but now his immediate family has revealed him as an LGBTQ liberal sympathetic to trans people and living with a trans person. Robinson has also been exposed as being against President Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans who elected him, just like Kimmel.
Kimmel made the erroneous assertion that Charlie Kirk’s assassin, Tyler Robinson, was a conservative MAGA Republican when in fact he has never been registered to vote at age 22. That alone disproves Kimmel’s assertion. His parents were Republican voters but he was a liberal who never voted.
While the left took Kimmel’s cancelation as an attack on our Constitutional First Amendment right to Free Speech, the right took it as a combination of misinformation and defamation.
The truth of the matter is Kimmel’s late-night show was bleeding viewers before Disney-owned ABC pulled the plug and suspended him after his Charlie Kirk comments. Fox News reported he already had a script written to further take a swipe at MAGA Americans on his Tuesday show. As the old adage goes, “It is always all about the math,” and Kimmel’s recent math was not good.
Nielsen data have shown sharp summer declines and a year-long slide that leaves him trailing late-night rivals such as Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld and CBS’s Stephen Colbert. According to monthly Nielsen figures, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” dropped to just 1.1 million total viewers in August 2025, down 43% from January’s 1.95 million. His August household rating of 0.35 marked the weakest showing of 2025. Kimmel’s advertiser-coveted 18–49 demographic also cratered averaging only 129,000 viewers in August, off from 212,000 in January and less than half his June peak of 284,000. With his ABC contract set to expire next year, this recent slump raised questions whether “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” could regain momentum against Colbert, Fallon and cable hosts such as Gutfeld.
Two of the largest distributers of network broadcast television, Nexstar and Sinclair, seemingly said enough was enough after Kimmel’s delusional monologue over the Kirk assassin.
Nexstar is in the middle of a $6.2 billion merger with Tegna, which will create one of the largest TV networks in the country. That deal, if completed, will push them over the 39% household reach threshold. To get it approved, they need FCC approval.
Brendan Carr, Chairman of the FCC, blasted Jimmy Kimmel’s comments Tuesday as insensitive and warned networks to take responsibility… or face consequences. Thereafter Nexstar’s leadership had two options to either keep Kimmel around and risk their Tegna deal going sideways or cut him loose. Nexstar executives in Irving, Texas, were probably actually offended by Kimmel like Carr was and probably said; “We’re not gonna air this crap any longer!” Keep in mind, in Texas, Kirk was more popular than Kimmel, for the most part.
ABC and Disney’s angle was: Kimmel’s ratings were declining. He’s expensive. He created a public relations nightmare akin to Cracker Barrel. Why fight uphill to defend him when the numbers don’t justify it? Fire him… cut costs… ease FCC pressure… protect stockholders.
This wasn’t personal. It was calculated. Jimmy Kimmel went from asset to liability, and when that happens in business, you’re done. As the old adage goes, “Money talks and bullsh!t walks.” Essentially, his viewership now is worse than when he started.
- 2003: 1.8
- 2004: 1.7
- 2005: 1.7
- 2006: 1.8
- 2007: 1.9
- 2008: 1.8
- 2009: 1.9
- 2010: 1.9
- 2011: 2.0
- 2012: 2.1
- 2013: 2.7
- 2014: 2.6
- 2015: 2.4
- 2016: 2.2
- 2017: 2.2
- 2018: 2.1
- 2019: 1.9
- 2020: 1.8
- 2021: 1.6
- 2022: 1.7
- 2023: 1.8
- 2024: 1.8
- 2025: 1.6
CONCLUSION:
And speaking of money to rationalize cutting Kimmel, online stats report his salary of $16 million was supported with advertising revenue that plummeted from $439 million, when he was in his prime, down to $220 million just recently.
Kimmel’s show averaged 2.2 million in 2016 and 2017, fell to 2.1 million in 2018, dropped to 1.9 million in 2019 and sunk to 1.8 million in 2020. By 2021, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” managed only 1.5 million nightly viewers. Kimmel’s 2025 average viewership was 1.6 million.
And for perspective, since Fox and Gutfeld now rule the late night comedy/news show market:
- 2025 Kimmel 1.2 Million Viewers
- 2025 Gutfeld 3.2 Million Viewers
- Kimmel $16,000,000 per year
- Gutfeld $7,000,000 per year
Illinois’ delusional governor, J.B. Pritzker, recently called for Americans to boycott ABC and Disney. He is delusional because he has visions of the Oval Office dancing in his head and he fails to understand that if Nexstar and Sinclair refused to carry the ABC- Disney Kimmel show as the so-called “middle men” ABC had no choice. This puts Pritzker on a level of stupid second only to Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) who said this past week, “…, just because someone has committed a crime, it doesn’t make them a criminal.”
Our household has been boycotting all three major networks when it comes to both the evening news as well as late night comedy shows for many years now. The reason is because of their obvious bias against Republicans. They make up stuff about Republicans and then take a pass on the easy comedy gold shots related to all the daffy Democrats (like Pritzker and Crockett).
“Study reveals media coverage of Trump is 92% negative” – Fox News
Kimmel was fired because, quite frankly, he was just not funny. On top of that, he, and other late night hosts seemingly banned conservative celebrity personalities, like country star Toby Keith, from their shows.
President Donald Trump makes a good point when he says all 3 major networks need to be investigated by the FCC as they are nothing more than an arm of the DNC giving Democrats free advertising (propaganda) which is essentially election interference by repetitive misinformation.
“Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels said, “If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth.”
In memory of Charlie Kirk, WE, THE PEOPLE, will not allow you to lie about Kirk being a racist or homophobic, and we will not allow you to lie about his killer being a MAGA Republican! If you do so you are a liar and therefor assumed to be a Nazi and we Americans hate Nazis!
“IT’S OVER: Massive Moving Trucks Spotted TEARING DOWN Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC Studio, Show WON’T Return…” – Benny Johnson
And to all the Democratic drama queen liberals saying, “Trump is ending free speech and murdering the First Amendment!”, that is yet another liberal lie.
The truth is Jimmy Kimmel is responsible for this “market correction” all by himself.
© 2025 by Mark S. Schwendau
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Thinking Conservative.
