Kimmel’s previous, multiyear contract had been set to expire next May, so the extension will keep him on the air until at least May 2027.
He continued his relentless joking at the president’s expense, leading Trump to urge the network to “get the bum off the air” in a social media post last month. The post followed Kimmel’s nearly 10-minute monologue on Trump and the Jeffrey Epstein files.
“I’ve watched some of the people that host,” Trump said. “I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible, and some of these people, if I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president.”
Kimmel has hosted the Oscars four times, but he’s never hosted the Kennedy Center show.
Just last week, Kimmel was needling Trump on the president’s approval ratings. “There are gas stations on Yelp with higher approval ratings than Trump right now,” he said.
Kimmel will be staying longer than late-night colleague Stephen Colbert at CBS. The network announced this summer it was ending Colbert’s show next May for economic reasons, even though it is the top-rated network show in late-night television.
ABC has aired Kimmel’s late-night show since 2003, during a time of upheaval in the industry. Like much of broadcast television, late-night ratings are down. Viewers increasingly turn to watching monologues online the day after they appear.
Most of Kimmel’s recent renewals have been multiyear extensions. There was no immediate word on whose choice it was to extend his current contract by one year.
Bill Carter, author of “The Late Shift” and veteran chronicler of late-night TV, cautioned against reading too much into the length of the extension. Kimmel, at age 58, knows he’s getting close to the end of the line, Carter said, but when he leaves, he doesn’t want it to appear under pressure from Trump or anyone.
“He wants to make sure that it’s on his terms,” Carter said.
Kimmel has become one of the leading voices resisting Trump. “I think it’s important for him and for ABC that they are standing up for him,” Carter said.
When he returned to the air, Kimmel did not apologize for his remarks, but he said he did not intend to blame any specific group for Kirk’s assassination. He said “it was never my intention to make the light of the murder of a young man.”
