Did Jimmy Kimmel have bad ratings? Podcaster Tim Pool claims he can "post a picture of a cat and get more views" than the talk show host

Jimmy Kimmel Live! had been taken off the air indefinitely by ABC, and it has caused massive chaos since then. Meanwhile, Podcaster Tim Pool claimed on social media. In a tweet posted on Thursday, September 18, Tim claimed that Kimmel was getting only around 129K viewers. The podcaster further wrote in the tweet,

"HOLY SH*T! Kimmel was ONLY Getting 129,000 Viewers. hahahahah. I can post a picture of a cat and get more views than that."

Tim Pool wasn't the only one to claim that the show has poor ratings and viewership. According to Fox News, President Donald Trump had suggested that the decision to cancel the late-night show was due to its low ratings. On Thursday, Trump told reporters,

"Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else."

The outlet had claimed that the ratings of the show dropped massively over the last decade. In the year 2015, the show reportedly averaged 2.4 million viewers, and since then, the numbers have apparently just gone down. In 2016 and 2017, the numbers allegedly went down to 2.2 million and in 2018, they further dropped to 2.1 million.

According to Fox News, the crash continued in the consecutive years in the year 2019, Jimmy Kimmel Live! reportedly had dropped to 1.9 million and in 2020, the viewership dropped to 1.8 million. By 2021, the show only got about 1.5 million viewers, according to the outlet. In 2025, the average viewership reportedly was 1.6 million.

Thus, considering the reports by Fox News, the ratings of the show have dropped over the past ten years.

A source said that Brendan Carr's threat to ABC was "real" and "serious" and concerned all shows on the network, including Jimmy Kimmel Live!

A source associated with the situation recently opened up to CNN and gave insights about what had been happening behind the doors. According to the exclusive source, FCC chairman Brendan Carr's statement about ABC getting its local licenses canceled was a "real, serious threat." The source additionally stated,

"This isn't just about 'Jimmy Kimmel Live.' It's about all of ABC and all of the shows and all employees."

Meanwhile, a television news producer, who is not employed by the network, told CNN,

"There is no more terrifying circumstance for a broadcast entity than the threat of an FCC fine, or worse, that the agency could move to revoke the stations' broadcast licenses."

The exclusive source further told CNN that Jimmy Kimmel had prepared his monologue beforehand and even called it "very hot." According to the source, this was when higher executives urged Kimmel about "taking down the temperature" of his monologue. Soon, Nexstar had apparently announced plans to take the late-night show off the air.

This was when Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment Co-chairman Dana Walden decided to cancel the show indefinitely, in order to protect the brand as well as Jimmy Kimmel. One source claimed that Dana even had a conversation with Kimmel about how to move ahead post this situation. The source added that both of them had shared a positive relationship. Another source said,

"Everyone deeply values him and wants him to come back. But he has to take down the temperature."

Many netizens and celebrities have extended support to Jimmy Kimmel. No official statement regarding the situation has been issued by Kimmel as of now.