Disney President Dana Walden declined to confirm Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC renewal at a conference, pointing to late-night’s shrinking audience and weak digital revenue.
Disney President and Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden would not say Thursday whether ABC plans to keep Jimmy Kimmel beyond his current deal. Speaking at a Bloomberg conference, she shut down the direct question and instead framed late-night television as a tough business that no longer pays like it once did.
The New York Post reported her careful remarks as a telling signal on the host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after years of ratings pressure, affiliate pushback, and political blowback.
Walden made clear the network is weighing friendship and history against hard numbers. She left the renewal door open only in the most noncommittal way possible.
Asked about the contract, Walden answered flatly.
"I’m not going to make that announcement here with you today."
She then described the larger problem facing every broadcast late-night show.
"The truth is, it’s a very challenging daypart."
Walden credited Kimmel’s recent performance even as she undercut its value. She said his ratings are up, but only against a smaller pool of viewers still watching late-night on traditional television.
"That’s not to say that Jimmy is not doing a phenomenal job, and his ratings are up. But they’re up relative to a smaller audience that’s watching late night on broadcast television."
Digital clips and social views, she added, do not replace the old advertising model.
"That is not a lucrative opportunity for a very premium talk show."
Walden cast the decision as a balancing act between loyalty and the bottom line.
"We’re trying to make sense of the business while also honoring a deep partnership."
She closed with personal warmth that still offered no guarantee.
"I love Jimmy, we have great friendship. He’s close to a number of the people at Disney. We’re trying to work through it and make sense of, what does Jimmy want, what’s the right thing to do, and what’s the right thing for our business."
Kimmel signed a one-year extension in December of last year that carries him through the 2026-27 season. He reportedly earns about $16 million a year. The current deal expires in May 2027.
Less than a month before Walden spoke, Page Six reported the show was expected to end when that deal runs out. A source familiar with the situation told the outlet, “His contract is not getting extended.” Cost-cutting was cited as a possible factor. An ABC Entertainment spokesperson pushed back hard, calling the information inaccurate and any talk of the show’s future “purely speculative.”
That earlier report matches the careful tone Walden used on stage. Networks rarely telegraph cancellations in public, yet they also rarely refuse a simple yes when the answer is yes. Related coverage has already examined how Jimmy Kimmel's late-night run faces a 2027 deadline after more than two decades.
ABC pointed to Nielsen numbers showing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” averaged 2 million viewers in the 2025-26 season, up from 1.55 million the year before, a jump of roughly 29 percent. The show also averaged a 0.18 rating among adults 18 to 49, up from 0.14. Disney called it Kimmel’s largest total audience in eight seasons and his strongest showing in the key demo in four seasons.
Walden’s own words placed those gains in context. Growth inside a collapsing daypart still leaves a premium talk show chasing fewer advertising dollars. Broadcast late-night once minted money; the same format now fights cord-cutting, time-shifted viewing, and free clips that generate buzz without the old license-fee returns.
That commercial squeeze sits alongside a longer record of political risk that has already forced ABC’s hand once. Earlier reporting on the same timeline noted how Kimmel’s ABC late-night run has drawn repeated questions about whether the network will keep writing the checks.
In September of last year, ABC temporarily pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after Kimmel’s on-air remarks about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Major affiliate owners Nexstar and Sinclair separately preempted the program. Sinclair went further and demanded that Kimmel apologize to Kirk’s family and donate to them and to Turning Point USA, the group Kirk co-founded.
Disney restored the show less than a week later. Affiliates resumed carriage days afterward. The episode still showed how quickly local station groups can pull the plug when a host’s monologue collides with their own audiences and advertisers.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr also scrutinized the Kirk comments. More recently, Kimmel said an interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was held back from the ABC broadcast over concerns about the FCC’s political equal-opportunities rules. Those regulatory tripwires add another layer of cost and caution for a show already under business pressure.
Radio veteran Howard Stern has publicly warned about the wider fallout if the franchise weakens, a point underscored when Stern puts ABC on notice over what happens next in late night.
In April, Kimmel joked that First Lady Melania Trump had “the glow of an expectant widow.” After a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner put that line in a darker light, President Trump and the first lady called for ABC to fire him. The network did not suspend him that time.
The pattern is familiar. Late-night hosts built brands on nightly partisan attacks. Station owners, regulators, and large parts of the national audience eventually push back. Guest bookings that turn the desk into a political platform only heighten the exposure, as seen when the White House hits back after pointed on-air demands.
Even lighter bookings carry the same brand association. City politicians still chase the national microphone, including when Mayor Mamdani books a seat during the show’s Brooklyn week.
Walden’s refusal to lock in a new deal does not equal a cancellation notice. It does place the burden on Kimmel and his team to prove the show still makes commercial sense in a daypart that has already lost much of its old audience and advertising power. Friendship and history buy time. They do not rewrite the revenue sheet.
When a network’s own number two will not promise the next contract, the market, not the monologue, gets the final vote.
