While showing his support for Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel slammed the insinuation that The Late Show was “losing $40 million a year” before it was canceled.
Kimmel, 57, called those reports “beyond nonsensical,” telling Variety on Monday, August 18, “These alleged insiders who supposedly analyze the budgets of the shows — I don’t know who they are, but I do know they don’t know what they’re talking about. They seem to only be focused on advertising revenue and have completely forgotten about affiliate fees, which number in the hundreds of millions — probably in total billions — and you must allocate a certain percentage of those fees to late night shows.”
The host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! called the claims about what led to The Late Show‘s controversial ending nowhere “near accurate.”
“Even that — that’s all you need to know. Suddenly he’s losing $40 million a year?” Kimmel continued. “I will tell you, the first 10 years I did the show, they claimed we weren’t making any money — and we had five times as many viewers on ABC as we do now. Who knows what’s true? All I know is they keep paying us — and that’s kind of all you need to know.”
Colbert, 61, shocked CBS viewers when he confirmed in July that The Late Show had been canceled.
“Before we start the show I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season,” Colbert announced during a taping as the audience booed. “I share your feelings. It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”
He continued: “I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners. … And I’m grateful to the audience, you, who have joined us every night, in here, out there and all around the world.”
Colbert confirmed at the time that CBS “will be ending The Late Show” in May 2026, but a specific date for the final episode hasn’t been announced yet. CBS executives, meanwhile, released a statement addressing their decision, claiming it was not “related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount” but was instead due to finances.
In response to CBS’ decision to pull the plug, The Late Show received an outpouring of support from fellow late night hosts — including from Kimmel, who reposted a clip of Colbert’s announcement via his Instagram Story with the caption, “Love you Stephen. F*** you and all your Sheldons CBS.”
Kimmel elaborated on Monday about the state of late night TV, saying, “Network television is declining. There’s no question about that. But more people are watching late night television than ever before — and I include Johnny Carson in that. People may find that shocking. When Carson was at his peak, he was getting around 9 million viewers a night. That’s huge. Of course, the lead-in shows were getting 30 and 40 million, which was a big part of it. But people are still watching late night — just in different places. Our monologues get between 2 and 5 million views, sometimes more, every night.”
The late night talk show host pointed to his peers and their success.
“Seth Meyers gets 2 million on YouTube alone. We’re not even talking about Instagram or the other platforms. The Daily Show — Jon Stewart on a Monday night will get 5 million views. Then you add in the TV ratings. So the idea that late night is dead is simply untrue. People just aren’t watching it on network television in the numbers they used to — or live, for that matter,” Kimmel continued. “So the advertising model may be dying, but late night television is the opposite. If you look at streaming numbers — how many streaming shows get 10 million views a week? Twenty million? Very few. I think if you really look at how people are watching these shows, and the numbers, it’s right up there with the top shows on Netflix and Hulu.”
Kimmel denied that late night shows are “a rotting corpse,” adding, “Which it most certainly is not. It just doesn’t add up. It’s a great story line … but it’s simply not true.”
Kimmel went on to praise Colbert, who has been hosting The Late Show since 2015.
“He’s not just a sweet man. He is very moral — he’s a very ethical person,” Kimmel said. “He is the salt of the earth. He is a humble person and an extremely smart person. I hope that whatever he does next is even more powerful than what he’d been doing. And I think that’s very possible.”
