Jimmy Kimmel Live! return Tuesday night after nearly a week of suspension. Despite being pre-empted in nearly a quarter of the country, ABC revealed that Kimmel’s return broke a decade-old record.
The long-running late-night talk show returned with 6.26 million total views, ABC announced Wednesday. According to the network, Jimmy Kimmel Live! earned a 0.87 rating among adults 18 to 49, “representing the show’s highest regularly scheduled episode in over 10 years — since 3/12/15.”
“In addition to linear ratings, the monologue has garnered more than 26 million views across YouTube and social platforms,” the statement, which was released less than 24 hours after the show aired, added.
The news comes one week after ABC announced they would be pulling Kimmel indefinitely due to receiving pressure from the FCC and station owners surrounding comments the host made about the death of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” Disney said in a statement on Monday. “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
Despite Kimmel’s return to ABC, Nexstar and Sinclair — two of the biggest station owners nationwide — refused to air the comeback, claiming they “stand by that decision.”
