Jimmy Kimmel Ratings This Week, More Controversies, and Industry Repercussions: A Deep Dive

John discusses the recent ratings surge of Jimmy Kimmel’s show and its impact, despite being preempted in many US households. The episode delves into Kimmel's jokes targeting former President Trump and responses from political figures like JD Vance. It highlights the controversy surrounding the FCC and its perceived government pressure on Kimmel.

00:41 Jimmy Kimmel's Recent Viewership
01:20 Kimmel's Monologue Highlights
01:57 Political Reactions and Free Speech Debate
04:32 Broadcasting Rights and Legal Implications
06:31 Roseanne Barr's Controversy
07:32 Disney Plus Price Hike LOL
 


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Caalaroga Shark Media. Hey it's John. It's Thursday afternoon. This
is a Jimmy Kimmel bonus. I think we'll start to
ramp down from the constant Jimmy Kimmel bonus episodes as
the news settles in. But I do like to gauge
the temperature of what I call the civilians. These are
the people in normal life who aren't listening to daily

(00:25):
comedy news. They're not comedy snobs, and they were still
talking about Jimmy Kimmel today, So I figured let me
do one more in here. Then I think we'll get
back to a normal schedule, although on Sunday I have
Julie Seaboss. He produced the new Mark Marin documentary, so
I'm gonna drop that into the feed on Sunday. We'll
get to that. Jimmy Kimmel's Show on Tuesday Night six
point twenty six million total viewers, despite not airing on

(00:48):
twenty three percent of US television households because of the
whole you Know Next Star Sinclair thing during the twenty
twenty four to twenty twenty five season that was September
to May. Jimmy Kimmel's average viewership was one point four
to two million. Again. The other night got six point
twenty six million. I don't have final Wednesday Night numbers yet,
but as of ten am Wednesday morning, the Wednesday Night monologue,

(01:11):
so that's night two. The Wednesday night monologue had three
and a half million views. The Tuesday night monologue, his
first night back, was closing in on twenty million views
on YouTube. On Wednesday night, Jimmy Kimmel and his monologue said,
moments after we taped our show last night, the Mad
Red Hatter or I can't believe they gave me my
job back. I can't believe we gave you your job back.
Good joke Kimmel. Again, he says, I think we're going

(01:33):
to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do.
Last time I went after them, they gave me sixteen
million dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. Only Donald
Trump would try to prove he wasn't threatening ABC by
threatening ABC. Another good joke, Kimmel one more time. This
was his big closer. Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his
bad ratings, and he does know bad ratings. He has
some of the worst ratings any president has ever had
so on behalf of us all. Welcome to the crappy

(01:55):
ratings club. Mister President, I'm doing a quick Google search
here of the words Kimmel Trump. I don't think the
President has addressed the situation today. On Thursday, JD. Van
suggested that the SEC chairman he was just kidding. It
was just a joke. Uh huh, right, sure, Jan. A
reporter asked about free speech implications. Vice President JD. Vance

(02:17):
said what people will say is didn't the FCC commissioner
put out a tweet that said something bad? Well, compare
the FCC commissioner making a joke on social media. What
is the government action that the Trump administration has engaged
in the kick Jimmy Kimmel or anybody else off the air? Zero?
What government pressure have we bought to bear to tell
people that they're not allowed to speak to their mind? Zero?
Hang on there a second. Now, I'll let the lawyers

(02:40):
parse the language on what social media is or not.
Commissioner car was on Benny Johnson's podcast is a podcast
social media? Or is a podcast a podcast? Like right now,
I think I'm doing a podcast and I'm not on
social media right now. But I'm not a lawyer anyway.
Whatever Benny Johnson's thing is. Commissioner car said, frankly, when

(03:01):
we see stuff like this, I mean, we can do
this the easy way or the hard way. These companies
can find ways to change conduct, to take action frankly
on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for
the FCC ahead. Now, going back to Vice President Vance's comments, well,
compare the FCC commissioner making a joke on social media.
What is the government action that the Trump administration has
engaged in to kick Jimmy Kimmel or anybody else off

(03:23):
the air? Zero hold on a second, their Vice President
Vance President Trump on social media and President Trump's social
media actually is social media. The President's account wrote, the
White House was told by ABC that his show was canceled.
There again, I'll let the lawyer's parse the sentence. The
sentence before is, I can't believe ABC, fake news gave

(03:46):
Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told
by ABC that his show was canceled. I believe, personally,
perhaps possibly maybe that the pronoun his is referring to
Jimmy Kimmel. It's possible that the President was referring to
Henry Winkler at some point Happy Days was canceled. It's
possible that's what he meant. But as I'm reading it,

(04:06):
my non legal interpretation, personal opinion, what do I know,
dummy in the basement, I think he's referring to Jimmy Kimmel. There,
the Vice President said, what is the government action that
the Trump administration has engaged in to kick Jimmy Kimmel
or anybody else off the air? Zero? What government pressure
if we brought to bair to tell people that they're
not allowed to speak their mind. Zero. We believe in
free speech, and the Trump administration we're fighting it every

(04:28):
day to protect it. Now compare that to the Biden administration. Now,
Deadline got into an interesting business standpoint. Kimmel is back,
but how long can next Door and Sinclair keep him sidelined.
I've heard a lot of interesting things about this. One
broadcast executive told Deadline it depends how crazy it gets.
It depends who fights the legal battle and whether ABC
wants to go after them. The affiliates in some way,
shape or form, how aggressive they want to get, ABC

(04:50):
will turn the other cheek for a while until they
don't want to turn the other cheek anymore. A broadcast
executive talked about a typical agreement. No, Normally, the local
station has rights to preempt up to a certain amount
of times, unless it's at a national emergency. If the
stations exceed that number, they lose rights to air that show,
and the network can shift the show and its affiliated
station elsewhere in a given market. So, as I understand

(05:12):
this listening to podcasts such as The Town, that number
might be around fifteen. That you can just preempt Jimmy
Kimmel's show fifteen times because reasons, and then after that
ABC could say you don't want to air Kimmel, Okay, we're
giving it to the other channel, and then ABC can
cut whatever deal they want with the other channel. There
are exceptions, as I understand this, again a little outside

(05:35):
my expertise here, maybe completely wrong, but as I understand it,
say there was a terrible earthquake and you were doing
earthquake coverage and therefore you didn't want to air Jimmy
Kimmel because the news superseded the Jimmy Kimmel show. That's
something you could do. There is a public interest cause,
so you could say, Jimmy Kimmel's not in the public interest,
so that possibly, perhaps maybe could get view an out.

(05:56):
But I heard a counter argument that said, you've been
airing Jimmy Kimmel twenty three years. Apparently it is in
the public interest. So again we'll let the lawyers fight
that one out. One of the questions, could ABC tell
these stations, all right, no Monday night football for you,
no SEC football this weekend? Sucks to be you. I
believe that's the same argument in reverse of what is

(06:18):
the agreement between the affiliate and the station that they
would have the rights. You can't just take the stuff away.
But again I'm not expert in this, but as a
media executive, I do find it fascinating. Roseanne Barr not
happy that Jimmy Kimmel is back. You may recall ABC
removed Roseanne Barr from the air a few years back.

(06:39):
She says, it just shows how they think I got
my whole life ruin, no forgiveness, all of my work stolen,
and called a racist for time and eternity for racially
misgendering someone. It's a double standard, you may recall. In
May twenty eighteen, Roseanne Barr published a social media post
about former Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. I'm going to

(07:00):
read you of the words from the post. They are horrible.
I don't come to offend. I'm gonna quote them verbatim.
In the May twenty eighteen post, bar wrote the Jarrett
was equivalent to quote Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the
Apes had a baby. Roseanne bar deleted and apologized for
the comment. ABC canceled the Roseanne reboot. Looking back at

(07:22):
those days, Roseanne Barr claimed that Jimmy Kimmel called me
a racist, even though I said repeatedly, which they repeatedly censored,
that it was a mistake. I thought the woman was
a white woman from Iran. And with everybody canceling Disney
Plus because they were mad, this seems the perfect time
to raise prices. Yeah, Disney Plus with ads going up
two dollars a seat for just eleven ninety nine a month.

(07:44):
You can get Disney Plus with ads. If you want
no ads, it's going up three dollars to eighteen ninety
nine starting October twenty First Way to Read the Room,
and there were reports that some self described pro democracy
organication sent a letter to Bob Iger on behalf of
two shareholders demanding details about ABC's decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel.

(08:09):
The letter on behalf of the Disney shareholders requested the
production of internal Disney documents and communications related to the
decision to take Kimmel off the air for a week.
Having been at big companies over the years, boy, I
hope nobody wrote an email, and I hope nobody text.
I hoped everybody picked up the phone. There. The groups
contend to Kimmel's suspension as a potential violation of Disney's

(08:31):
obligations to shareholders. The group claims that Disney stock suffered
significant declines. Shares of Disney dropped three point three percent
from September eighteen to the twenty third. However, closed up
one point zero five percent on Wednesday. Earlier today, at noon,
I dropped a different bonus episode with John Marcos SIRESI.
I hope you check that one out. This will be

(08:52):
it for today, barring scary thing happening that I'm not expecting,
and then we'll try and get back into a normal
mode with a normal episode on Friday morning and Saturday
morning and Sunday morning, and then Sunday afternoon, we'll do
the bonus with Julie Siebaugh, who produced the Marin documentary.
I really appreciate you guys listening. This is a lot
of fun to do, and I'll see you tomorrow