The report
Hot off an Emmy win for Best Game Show Host over the weekend at the Creative Arts Emmys, Jimmy Kimmel was back in the headlines again on Monday — albeit for a less celebratory reason.
Page Six, the gossip site run by the New York Post and its California spin-off, published a story claiming that the host’s eponymous late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, would be ending in May 2027, after 24 years on the air.
The news was especially shocking coming almost a year to the day after Kimmel was temporarily yanked from ABC’s airwaves after politically motivated bad-faith attacks stemming from a comments made during the show’s monologue following the death of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel triumphantly returned to the show the following week to bipartisan support and renewed venom for his First Amendment-flouting adversaries.
The response
But reports of Jimmy Kimmel Live‘s death may have been exaggerated.
Included in Page Six’s report was a denial from ABC, which said, “[This] information is inaccurate — any reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative.”
What’s it mean?
While the comment from ABC pushed back on the narrative, for sure, it wasn’t exactly as full-throated denial that Jimmy Kimmel Live would be ending after the conclusion of its upcoming season.
If Live were to end, it would more closely align with trends in the world of late-night than not. While embroiled it political battles of its own, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was officially canceled by CBS for monetary reasons, which would isn’t completely fabulistic reasoning in a media landscape of constantly dwindling broadcast television viewers and falling ad revenue.
The topic of Kimmel’s eventual retirement from the show came up during a recent episode of Armchair Expert, where his wife and series EP/head writer Molly McNearney admitted that she could see some good coming from the end.
“It definitely appeals to me for the nervous system of the household,” she said. “I feel like Jimmy has a fly rod in one hand and a torch in the other right now. It’s like he deserves to go out there and just be on the river and relax, but I also want him to keep fighting. And I feel this sense of desire to not quit because I think what he’s doing is incredibly important right now.”
When speaking with Gold Derby as a part of this year’s Emmy campaign, McNearney expressed how uncertain the future of the show remained, even after returning from the forced hiatus. “[It’s] still happening,” she said.
A Hollywood ending?
While the story may still be developing, the one certainty is this Monday’s telecast of the Primetime Emmy Awards, where Jimmy Kimmel Live will be up for Best Variety Series, a category that could see as many as five winners, Kimmel included.
