Kimmel has taken a beating for painting a false picture of Charlie Kirk’s killer and implying that Donald Trump supporters were trying to politicize the event.
His description of alleged shooter Tyler Robinson as "MAGA" and pro-Trump was inaccurate, offensive to many and led to his brief suspension.
Kimmel accused the “MAGA gang” of “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and of “doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
He was softer and more conciliatory in tone Tuesday night. His comments included praise for Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, but they did not include an apology.
"I don't think what I say is going to make much of a difference," Kimmel told his audience. "If you like me, you like me, if you don't you don't … it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man."
Viewers should have been able to guess what was coming, said Curtis Houck of Newsbusters.
"It was entirely predictable that Kimmel would come out with tears and try to offer some sort of mealy mouth non-apology apology because Kimmel is such an avowed partisan," said Houck. "In his monologues smearing not only President Trump or whichever conservative is in the line of fire with the liberal media, Kimmel has shown such a seething hatred that I don't think he was going to look past that."
Sorry, not sorry
Houck added that Kimmel was "unrepentant" in his comments.
"He pulled a Clintonesque declaration that he was sorry that people thought that he said something, as opposed to sorry that he said this to begin with, and as Andrew Kolvet, close advisor to the late Charlie Kirk said on Fox News, he didn't say he was sorry to the Kirk family," said Houck. "He tried to shoehorn in Erika Kirk's forgiveness to the shooter suspect as some sort of grace and emulation of the same Jesus that he believes in, but I find it hard to believe."
The reality is Kimmel has grabbed the spotlight that his show never could, and conservatives have put him there through their outrage, Blaze Media host Steve Deace said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
In the case of Jimmy Kimmel, it’s important to follow the money, to find the trail to those who are subsidizing a product unable to stand on its own with advertising, he told show host Jenna Ellis.
“If conservative media had not pointed out what Jimmy Kimmel said, we would have found out what happens when a tree falls in the forest,” Deace said. “The audiences are not there, not even within their own worldview. People largely aren't watching this or consuming it. So, you have to ask yourself, then, who's paying for this, and it's really a subsidy.”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” averaged viewership of 1.6 million so far in 2025, down 37% from its 2015 totals.
The show averaged nearly 1 million viewers among the critical demographic of adults ages 25-54 in 2015 but has plummeted to only 261,000 in 2025. It has shed a staggering 72% of the audience that helps pay the bills over the past decade, Fox News reports.
For advertisers, the return on investment is abysmal, Deace says.
The elite tier of conservative media – a group Deace identifies as Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson – would draw more downloads for a single episode than a 12-hour window of programming at MSNBC, he said.
“The same is true for CNN. I have more people 25-54 that listen to me than watch CNN … fact,” he said.
Not all of that diminished audience was able to tune in with Kimmel on Tuesday as Nexstar Media and Sinclair Broadcasting, owners of 70 ABC affiliates, roughly 25% of the network’s reach, refused to air the show.
Combined, they reach about 23% of U.S. households.
It’s unclear how long Nexstar and Sinclair will hold out, however, since both are under left-wing pressure to cave.
A campaign email by left-wing group Indivisible, which was viewed by AFN, bragged its lobbying efforts put Kimmel back on the air. The group also urged its supporters to put political pressure on Nextar and Sinclair, too, to cave to Kimmel. The email also accused the affiliates of a political "collaboration" with FCC chairman Brendan Carr and President Trump.
“People largely aren’t watching this, or consuming it, even within their own worldview," Deace observed. "So you have to ask yourself then, since there's no ratings for this, since it's generating really zero audience, given the outlay of what all this costs and is being summoned, who’s paying for this? And it’s really a subsidy."
Who has an affinity for Kimmel?
Advertisers supporting causes that are dear to them, or entities that support their worldview, is not uncommon at lower transactional levels, Deace said.
But is it happening with major over-the-air broadcast networks?
“There’s a thing called affinity advertising, and we have it on our website, too, meaning that (advertisers) so believe in the message,” Deace said.
Many advertisers will support a local sports team with expectations for a great “return on ad spending,” known in the industry as ROAS.
“They want to support the local university team, so they'll buy a bunch of ads on their university radio network. Sometimes you can have a certain amount of losses you can write off elsewhere, but you’re not really doing it as a transaction or an investment. It's an affinity for you,” Deace said.
The question is who has an affinity for late-night talk shows and other left-leaning talk media?
“Somebody is spending billions of dollars in affinity advertising to keep these networks and to keep these shows on the air, because the audience is not there,” Deace said.
