Sunday, June 21, 2026

Jimmy Kimmel Is the Six Million Viewer Man as Return Show Tops Expectations on TV and Social Media

Share

★ Make Showbiz411 your Preferred Source on Google

Jimmy Kimmel’s return to TV brought huge ratings.

On TV, Kimmel scored over 6.2 million viewers — at least four times more than normal.

And that was without 23% of ABC’s stations. Right wing Sinclair and Nexstar each blocked the show and lost out on publicity and revenue.

Meanwhile, on YouTube the number of views for the monologue is up past 15 million just for Kimmel’s subscriber channel. Another 2 million can be counted from other venues who showcased the monologue.

It’s a huge win for ABC and Kimmel, a big loss for Donald Trump, Nexstar, and Sinclair. They created a Frankenstein in a very short time.

The return has caused such a headache for them, Tylenol might be called for!

Donate to Showbiz411.com

Showbiz411 is now in its 13th year of providing breaking and exclusive entertainment news. This is an independent site, unlike the many Hollywood trades that are owned by one company. To continue providing news that takes a fresh look at what's going on in movies, music, theater, etc, advertising is our basis. Reader donations would be greatly appreciated, too. They are just another facet of keeping fact based journalism alive.
Thank you


Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

Read more

In Other News