Jimmy Kimmel Live

On January 26, 2003, Jimmy Kimmel Live! premiered on ABC, with debut guests George Clooney, Snoop Dogg, and the band Coldplay. The show was initially scheduled in the 12:05 am to 1:05 am slot after midnight, with each episode running one hour. ABC chose Kimmel, former host of the Comedy Central show The Man Show, hoping to distinguish itself from the established late-night shows with a younger audience; the show was taped next door to the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood and was initially broadcast live in the Eastern and Midwestern United States.⁠[1][2][3][2][2][3]

The show was originally produced by Jackhole Industries in association with Touchstone Television. Reviews of the premiere were unfavorable; The Hollywood Reporter found the first episode disorganized and lacking in humor.⁠[3][2]

In 2009, Kimmel created a YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel for the show, becoming the first late-night host to do so.⁠[4]

On August 21, 2012, ABC announced that the show would take over the 11:35 p.m. time slot long held by the news magazine Nightline, competing directly with NBC’s The Tonight Show and CBS’s Late Show; ABC said the move took advantage of the show’s ratings growth and the potential for greater ad revenue. From January 8, 2013, the show aired at 11:35 p.m. Eastern.⁠[5][5][5][5]

On January 26, 2023, the show aired a primetime special marking its 20th anniversary, with debut guests George Clooney, Snoop Dogg, and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin returning. At this time, the show was produced by 12:05 AM Productions in association with KIMMELOT and ABC Signature; a contract extension Kimmel had signed earlier kept the show going through its 23rd season.⁠[1][1][1][1]

On September 10, 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a debate event at Utah Valley University, and police subsequently arrested a 22-year-old suspect, Tyler Robinson. In his Monday monologue that week, Kimmel said that the “MAGA gang” was trying to characterize Kirk’s killer as “anything other than one of them” in order to score political points.⁠[6][6][6][6]

On September 17, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr, in an interview with Benny Johnson, suggested that action could be taken against Disney and ABC and put pressure on ABC affiliates. The same day, Nexstar Media Group, one of the largest owners of local TV stations in the United States, said it “strongly objects” to Kimmel’s remarks and announced it would replace the show with other programming on its ABC affiliates; Sinclair also announced it would not air the show. Hours later, ABC announced that the show would be “preempted indefinitely,” and an encore of Celebrity Family Feud aired in its place that night.⁠[6][6][7][6][8][9][10]

On September 22, 2025, The Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent company, announced that the show would return on September 23. The company said it had suspended the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for the country, because it felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive; after several days of “thoughtful conversations” with Kimmel, it decided to bring the show back.⁠[9][9][9][9]

On September 23, 2025, the show returned after a suspension of nearly a week. In an emotional monologue, Kimmel did not apologize, but said he had never intended to make light of the murder of a young man, and praised Kirk’s widow, Erika, for publicly forgiving her husband’s killer as a “selfless act of grace”; he also continued to poke fun at Trump, saying Trump had tried to get him taken off the air but had instead forced millions of people to watch the show.⁠[11][11][11][11]

By the following morning, the first episode after the return had been viewed nearly 8 million times on YouTube, compared with about 1.8 million television viewers on a typical night. Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk founded, said the monologue was “not good enough” and that Kimmel needed to apologize; Trump criticized ABC on social media for bringing Kimmel back and threatened a lawsuit.⁠[11][11][11][11]

On September 26, 2025, Nexstar and Sinclair announced that they would stop preempting the show on their ABC affiliate stations, resuming it that night. Sinclair said its objective throughout the process had been to ensure that programming is “accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” and said it had received feedback from viewers and advertisers and held constructive discussions with Disney; Sinclair also proposed several provisions to ABC and Disney, including viewer feedback, community dialogue, and a network-wide independent ombudsman.⁠[8][8][8][8]

On December 8, 2025, Kimmel announced in his monologue a one-year extension with ABC that will keep the show on the air through the end of the 2026–27 TV season, in May 2027; his previous deal had been set to end in May 2026. The extension is shorter than his usual three-year extensions in the past.⁠[12][12][13][13]

On June 1, 2026, at the 86th annual Peabody Awards, the show won its first-ever Peabody Award, in the Entertainment category. In his acceptance speech, Kimmel said: “Making jokes about the president in America shouldn’t win you a prize.”⁠[14][14][14]

During the summer 2026 break, guest hosts included Tiffany Haddish, Anthony Anderson, Ike Barinholtz, Colman Domingo, Rosie O’Donnell, and Jelly Roll. On September 8, 2026, responding to a Page Six report that the show would end after Kimmel’s contract expires in 2027, ABC called the report “inaccurate,” saying that “any reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative.”⁠[15][15]

As of October 2026, the show airs on ABC every weeknight at 11:35 p.m. (10:35 Central) and is taped at the El Capitan Entertainment Centre on Hollywood Boulevard. Its executive producers are Jimmy Kimmel, Erin Irwin, Molly McNearney, Jennifer Sharron, and David Craig, and its co-executive producer is Douglas DeLuca. The show is an Emmy Award winner.⁠[16][16][17][17][17]

Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Official website: https://abc.com/shows/jimmy-kimmel-live (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@JimmyKimmelLive (opens in a new window)⁠[1][1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/JimmyKimmelLive (opens in a new window)⁠[1]