It’s been quite the roller coaster ride for late-night talk show hosts over the past few months, where the behind-the-scenes happenings at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Live! have arguably been as relevant as anything actually on the shows. Jimmy Kimmel saw record ratings September 23, when he returned after being taken off the air a week earlier. However, that spike proved to be short-lived.
ABC announced on September 17 that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be pre-empted “indefinitely” following comments the host made on the show about Charlie Kirk’s death, but after strong reactions from around Hollywood and an allegedly large number of Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN subscription cancellations, he was brought back six days later. Kimmel's first episode back reached an audience of 6.26 million total viewers in Live+Same calculations, but just two days later on September 25, that number fell to 2.3 million, per the New York Post.
