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Disney Executive Won't Confirm Jimmy Kimmel's Future at ABC
ReDisney Executive Won't Confirm Jimmy Kimmel's Future at ABC
Dana Walden, Disney's president and chief creative officer, declined to say whether Jimmy Kimmel will remain ABC's late-night host, citing the challenging economics of the format as the network weighs the comedian's future.
Disney's top creative executive declined to say whether Jimmy Kimmel will remain ABC's late-night host, acknowledging that the economics of the format have made the decision far from straightforward.
Dana Walden, president and chief creative officer of The Walt Disney Company, was asked at the Bloomberg Screentime summit whether Kimmel would still be hosting his show a year from now. «Well, I'm certainly not going to make that announcement with you here today,» Walden responded with a grin, according to remarks at the event.
Pressed on why keeping Kimmel is not an obvious call, given his recent ratings gains and his emergence as a prominent voice in free-speech debates after clashes with President Donald Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr, Walden pointed to the structural decline of late-night television. «The truth is, it's a very challenging day part, late night,» she said. «That's not to say that Jimmy is not doing a phenomenal job, and his ratings are up, but they're up relative to a smaller audience that's watching late night on broadcast television.»
Walden noted that while clips of Kimmel's show draw millions of views on YouTube and on-demand platforms, that digital reach does not translate into the revenue a premium talk show requires. «That is not a lucrative opportunity for a very premium talk show,» she said. «So we're trying to make sense of the business while also honoring a deep partnership.»
She added that the company is weighing multiple factors, including what Kimmel himself wants and what makes sense for Disney's bottom line. «I love Jimmy. We have a great friendship,» Walden said. «He's close to a number of the people at Disney. And again, we're trying to work through it and make sense of both what does Jimmy want, what's the right thing to do and what's right thing for our business.»
Speculation has circulated that the current season of «Jimmy Kimmel Live!» could be its last, with the show potentially ending in 2027. Kimmel has had a turbulent stretch, including a brief suspension of his show by Disney in September 2025 after backlash over comments he made about the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. He also drew White House criticism earlier this year after joking that first lady Melania Trump had «a glow like an expectant widow.»
The uncertainty around Kimmel reflects broader turmoil in late-night television, a genre that has been contracting as audiences fragment and costs rise. At the same summit, comedian Conan O'Brien described watching the landscape shift during his 17 years at NBC. «I started to see, oh, this is really changing,» O'Brien said. «They're asking us to be much more cost-conscious.» He compared the industry's decline to Detroit's auto sector, which lost ground as competition from Japan and Europe intensified.
O'Brien, who moved from NBC to TBS before shifting to podcasts with «Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend,» noted that the number of late-night shows has multiplied even as the audience has shrunk. TBS ended its late-night programming in 2022 after canceling «Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.» Earlier this year, CBS replaced «The Late Show with Stephen Colbert» with Byron Allen's syndicated «Comics Unleashed.» «The Late Show» had reportedly been losing CBS $40 million a year with a $100 million per-season budget, while «Comics Unleashed» draws a fraction of Colbert's audience but is expected to generate a $15 million profit in the same slot through cost cuts.
For Disney, the decision on Kimmel involves balancing a valued creative partnership against a business model that Walden described as increasingly difficult to sustain. The company has not announced any change to the show's status, and Walden's comments left the question open.
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