By Tess Hill
Copyright hellomagazine
Late night television in the U.S. has faced major changes this year. On Wednesday, September 17, ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! was indefinitely suspended after the host, Jimmy Kimmel, made comments on the death of Charlie Kirk, the conservative political commentator who was shot and killed during a speaking event in Utah on September 10. This decision – which has been widely criticized as an act of censorship – by the network comes just three months after CBS announced that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert would come to an end in May 2026.
The comments that got Jimmy suspended occurred on an episode on Monday, September 15. The late night host said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” He added that President Trump’s reaction to Kirk’s death was odd.
Reactions to ABC’s announcement have been swift, with Jimmy’s fellow late night hosts standing in solidarity. “I’ll say this for my network. They wouldn’t have done this,” he declared during Thursday’s taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, per CNBC. “Now, regardless of what you think, that has already been done and how that looks, this is weak. This is blatant censorship.”
Jon Stewart hosted a special edition of The Daily Show in which he portrayed a “patriotically obedient host,” Seth Meyers told his audience: “The [Trump] administration is pursuing a crackdown on free speech… completely unrelated, I just want to say…that I’ve always admired and respected Mr. Trump,” and Jimmy Fallon said: “A lot of people are worried that we won’t keep saying what we want to say or that we’ll be censored, but I’m going to cover the president…just like I normally would.”
So, while the future of late night TV is in disarray, what are the ratings of each of the major late night shows?
Late night ratings compared
At the end of Q2 – on June 30th – The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was the most watched late night television show, per Late Nighter. Stephen’s talk show averaged 2.42 million viewers across 41 episodes. Jimmy Kimmel Live! came in second with an average of 1.77 million viewers. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon placed third with an average of 1.19 million views.
Late Night with Seth Meyers airs at 12:37 a.m. ET, so his show’s ratings don’t line up perfectly with the other three. But, the NBC super-late night show averaged 900,000 total viewers. The Daily Show with its rotating desk of hosts airing on Comedy Central averaged 994,000 viewers. Another outlier, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, averaged 150,389 viewers for its weekly show in Q2, per US TVDB.
Late Nighter found that in the coveted 18-49 age bracket, Jimmy Kimmel Live! won out. But, it’s well known that young people don’t watch late night television, or like myself, they catch clips on TikTok the next day. And none of the ratings for Q2 take into account the views on other platforms or streaming services.
