This week, a report emerged suggesting that Jimmy Kimmel Live may be winding down on ABC after next season, ending a late-night existence that has now stretched over two-and-a-half decades and saw its host old enough to be a mid-thirties starlet. Sources close to the project say that ABC is unlikely to offer Kimmel a new one-year deal after his current contract is up in May 2027. If those projections are right, Kimmel’s show launched in January 2003, and would leave the air after its twenty-fourth season.
ABC responded quickly to try to turn the tide. A network representative quickly dismissed the report, calling it inaccurate and stating that all talk about the show’s future is just speculation at this point. The denial keeps the story open for the moment, but the story itself fits into a larger picture of a many-faceted changes overtaking late-night programming.
The audience has continued to splinter while ad dollars grow tighter and two or three of the other heavy-hitters of late-night have already been pulled from the air or shaken up dramatically. Kimmel himself recently acknowledged that the thought of leaving late-night feels more like a birthday present now that he has that back with his family after having accepted the nightly deadlines for so long. The comedian has customarily opted for shorter terms that allow him room to maneuver, something that would come in handy and all too rare in this business. His latest agreement, signed after a brief and highly controversial hiatus in 2025, kept the show on until May 2027, a relatively short period that indicated the bond between host and network was entering a more uncertain stage. The issues is whether partner and host will consent to preserve or to terminate the show.
Over more than twenty years Kimmel made the Hollywood Boulevard studio familiar late-night territory. It was the site of the man-on-the-street interviews, the decade-spanning mock rivalry with Matt Damon, the Mean Tweets segments that regularly pulled major Hollywood stars, and the annual Halloween candy-giving pranks that became an institution, not to mention the cracks at Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump that kept him in the national conversation. Despite a changing media landscape, turbulent political climate, and ongoing shifts in how audiences consumed television, Kimmel maintained a regular presence on our screens and in our homes.
Always able to mix more incisive monologue fare with a more personal, emotionally accessible, sentimental approach, he was–for a consistent generation. The break happened to come around the time when the latest report came out. After guest hosts had maintained the shows hot seat while it was idled for the summer, the season premiere was packed with big name guests, so it felt as though everything was business as usual.
But the world in which it sits is different. Stephen Colbert’s aging show has gone off the air, and every big franchise is under the microscope in a time of austerity, as Disney (ABC’s parent company) searches for efficiencies to help balance the books. Kimmel has says he wants any exit to be fitting, rather than grand. He has mentioned the desire to take a momentary exit in a spectacular controversy for applause, and then choose against that to be selfish. Perhaps, that doctrine will decide anything.
