They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Love him or hate him, that adage did bear true when ABC semi-funnyman Jimmy Kimmel was yanked off airwaves for lying about the Charlie Kirk assassin in mid-September.
Kimmel came back from his five-day suspension to an undeniably massive audience: 6.48 million viewers, according to Mediaite.
But if absence makes the heart grow fonder, does presence make the heart grow weary?
Love him or hate him, that appears to be true about Kimmel, as well.
Despite that monstrous viewership for his return, few of them appeared to have stuck around, if one looks at the Nielsen ratings data analyzed by Mediaite.
After 6.48 million viewers for his return show on Sept. 23, Kimmel has struggled to maintain any sort of momentum.
In fact, Kimmel shed well over half of that audience within the span of 24 hours, as his Sept. 24 show brought in a much more humble 2.43 million viewers.
A day later, Kimmel lost a few more viewers, bringing his show’s viewership to 2.3 million.
Do you watch traditional late-night TV?
His next two shows brought 2.85 million and 2.45 million viewers, respectively.
Then, however, the bottom fell out as the calendar turned to October.
On Oct. 1, Kimmel’s viewership plummeted to 1.7 million viewers, a number that was much closer to Kimmel’s typical viewership.
For comparison, Fox News’ late night heavyweight, Greg Gutfeld, averaged 2.98 million viewers on Oct. 1 — a number that’s also close to Gutfeld’s typical viewership.
Of note, there could have been one key bit of intrigue that may have helped that bloated Sept. 23 viewership: Would Kimmel apologize for claiming that Kirk’s assassin was a card-carrying member of MAGA?
Kimmel did not apologize for making that false claim, and if anything, he has doubled down on his anti-MAGA rhetoric since then.
With that question answered, it appeared that over 3 million viewers decided that they would not be terribly interested in what Kimmel had to say beyond that.
And Kimmel appears to have been shedding viewers for some time now.
As noted by Forbes, at the height of liberal late night talk shows in 2015, Kimmel averaged 2.4 million viewers.
Now, to be fair, television viewership for pretty much anything outside of the NFL has dwindled in recent years.
However, Kimmel’s one-day drop of over 3 million viewers suggests something much deeper is amiss with this specific television program.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
