“Jimmy Kimmel Live” opened the 2026-2027 broadcast season as the No. 1 late night show in both total viewers and adults 18-49, averaging 2.29 million viewers and a 0.21 rating in the demo for the week of Sept. 21, according to Variety’s exclusive ratings report.
In the 11:35 p.m. hour, the ABC show beat NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” which averaged 1.3 million viewers, and CBS’ “Comics Unleashed,” which drew 704,000 viewers for its first half hour and 521,000 for its second.
It is the second year in a row that “Jimmy Kimmel Live” has opened the season on top in both measures during premiere week, and the fifth consecutive year the show has finished premiere week as the No. 1 late night program in adults 18-49.
How Premiere Week Compared
Premiere week ran slightly below the prior week of Sept. 14, which closed out the 2025-2026 season across just three nights. With guests including Stephen Colbert, the show averaged 2.34 million viewers and a 0.22 rating in adults 18-49 that week, also No. 1 in both measures.
The premiere week guests included Woody Harrelson, Jamie Foxx, Ke Huy Quan, Brandi Carlile and Ben Affleck.
A Season High For Kimmel
With the 2025-2026 season complete, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” averaged 2 million total viewers for the full season, its most-watched season since 2017-2018. In adults 18-49 the show averaged a 0.18 rating, No. 1 across late night and its best demo result since 2021-2022.
The season figures arrive three weeks after a report that the show would end in May 2027, which an ABC Entertainment spokesperson called inaccurate. Kimmel signed a one-year extension in December 2025 that runs through May 2027, shorter than the three-year renewals he had signed in the past.
Brooklyn Week Is Underway
The ratings come as the show kicked off its eighth week of episodes from Brooklyn on Monday, Sept. 28. The five episodes tape in front of a live audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music through Friday, Oct. 2, and air weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC before streaming the next day on Hulu. Kimmel said the show received almost 150,000 ticket requests for a theater with 1,600 seats.
Guests this week include New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Howard Stern, Paul McCartney and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Stern’s Tuesday sit-down is his first late night talk show appearance in nearly seven years.
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