THE REAL STORY

New Details Emerge About Kimmel’s Uncertain Future at ABC

The cancellation rumors may have been false, but something else is going on at ABC.

New insider information has surfaced about the fate of Jimmy Kimmel Live!

After Page Six falsely reported that ABC will not renew the show’s contract after its 24th season, ABC denied the claims in a statement to the Daily Beast, calling the information “inaccurate” and “purely speculative.” But Kimmel, 58, still isn’t safe, according to Puck’s Matthew Belloni.

Belloni dismissed speculation that ABC had decided to cancel Kimmel’s show, but said any possible contract extension beyond May 2027 would include significant budget cuts. Though Kimmel’s agent James “Baby Doll” Dixon and chair of Disney Entertainment Television Debra O’Connell, who is also the lead executive over ABC, are eager to negotiate a deal, O’Connell has “a stern message” for the team, Belloni writes, clarifying, “They’ll need to cut the budget.”

He added that Jimmy Kimmel Live! costs roughly the same $100 million per year to produce as The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which CBS canceled after Paramount’s merger with the MAGA-friendly company Skydance.

ABC hasn’t yet made public the exact amount O’Connell hopes to cut from Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s budget, but sources provided Belloni with a rough percentage estimate.

“A strong source close to the situation told me 20 percent of the current budget was a fair estimate,” Belloni wrote. “Not insignificant, and a big ask for a show like JKL!—which, like Colbert, has already been trimming costs in recent years.”

This year, Kimmel has started working off one-year contract extensions instead of the more common three-year extensions. In September, ABC pulled Kimmel off the air “indefinitely” after the host made a joke about MAGA’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The show returned five days later after major backlash.

Just this week, Kimmel accused Trump’s FCC goon, Brendan Carr, of censoring his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, which ended up streaming on YouTube instead of airing on ABC.

Now, Kimmel’s future may depend on whether the host will accept a drastic budget cut.

Though false, Belloni understands why rumors about the show have spread so widely.

“Given the grim fate of Stephen Colbert, and the Trump political tornado surrounding Kimmel and Disney, it’s the kind of story that just sounds right these days,” he wrote.

While Kimmel’s current contract expires next May, Belloni confirmed that the host intends to stay beyond the 2028 election—allowing him to outlast Trump.

“And now that Colbert is off TV, sources say that Kimmel feels a bit of a responsibility to carry the torch as late night’s thorn in the president’s side,” Belloni added. “The last thing he wants is to give Trump and his lapdog tormentor a reason to celebrate.”

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Dana Herrnstadt Editorial Intern, Obsessed

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