By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue on his return to U.S. late-night television on Tuesday after Walt Disney lifted his suspension has been seen more than 14 million times on Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram.
By Wednesday late-morning, Kimmel’s monologue had 10.1 million views on YouTube and 4.8 million on Instagram. Broadcast ratings for Tuesday’s show were not yet available.
Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair both opted on Tuesday to keep “Jimmy Kimmel Live” off their combined 70 owned and operated stations, which account for about 23% of U.S. households. That meant the show was not seen over the air in places like Salt Lake City, Utah; Nashville and New Orleans, among other markets.
Disney also offers Kimmel’s show for viewing on a number of streaming apps.
Disney, parent of the ABC television network that airs his show, halted its production on September 17, two days after Kimmel said in his opening monologue that President Donald Trump’s supporters were eager to characterize Charlie Kirk’s accused assassin “as anything other than one of them” and accused them of trying to “score political points” from Kirk’s killing.
“It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” the Kimmel said Tuesday, his voice choking with emotion, moments after taking the stage to a standing ovation.
In response to Kimmel’s remarks last week, U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened an investigation and urged television stations to drop Kimmel’s show or face possible fines and revocation of their broadcast licenses.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said on September 17, which brought calls for his resignation from Democrats and sharp criticism from Republicans including Senator Ted Cruz.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter and David Gregorio)
