(The Hill) — Comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late night on Tuesday earned him his largest television audience in more than a decade, ABC announced on Wednesday.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” this week netted more than 6 million viewers on linear broadcast, according to Nielsen Media Research data, despite the show being preempted in what the network said was more than 20 percent of households nationwide.
Those figures do not include the more than 20 million views his opening monologue racked up on YouTube or clips of his show that went viral on social media.
Kimmel’s Tuesday show was widely anticipated following his suspension by Disney, ABC’s parent company, over comments he made last week accusing conservatives of trying to score “political points” off the killing of activist Charlie Kirk and joking that President Donald Trump was mourning his death like “a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
The comedian addressed the controversy as he returned, saying it was not his intention to “make light of the murder of a young man,” but blasted Trump’s administration for trying to take him off the air over his jokes.
He was suspended after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr blasted him over the comments and suggested that ABC and the network’s affiliates drop him from the airwaves, arguing that his show was not serving the public interest.
Sinclair Broadcast and Nexstar Media Group, which owns The Hill, did so, announcing just hours before Kimmel was suspended that they would preempt his show “indefinitely,” over the rhetoric.
Neither company has indicated when they plan to air the show again.
Trump, who has for years beefed with Kimmel, celebrated his suspension at the time and blasted ABC for bringing the show back this week.
He and other critics of the comedian have brushed aside accusations of censorship and that the late-night host was taken off the air because he has “no talent” and “no ratings.”
Kimmel, who typically averages less than two million viewers per night, during his opening monologue on Tuesday, played a clip of Trump saying he has “no ratings.”
“Well, I do tonight,” the comedian joked. “He tried his best to cancel me, and instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show.”
“That backfired bigly,” he continued. “He might have to release the [Jeffrey] Epstein files to distract us from this now.”
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