Just as Jimmy Kimmel jokingly predicted , his late-night show saw quite an audience boost upon his return to ABC on Tuesday night after the network “indefinitely” preempted him last week.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! drew 6.26 million viewers on Tuesday night, per early live + same-day Nielsen data.

Consider that JKL averaged about 1.77M viewers in live + seven-day data in the second quarter of 2025, illustrating just how much the weeklong debacle over Kimmel’s comments last week about Charlie Kirk’s shooter drew national interest. The early data also doesn’t include streaming, so the total audience for Tuesday’s episode will likely increase once all is said and done.

It’s also worth noting that, given Nexstar and Sinclair are still preempting Kimmel , the episode was not available in

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