{"id":156238,"date":"2025-08-18T17:17:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/156238\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T17:17:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:17:15","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-defends-stephen-colbert-says-late-night-tv-not-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/156238\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel Defends Stephen Colbert, Says Late Night TV Not Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere\u2019s something refreshing about Jimmy Kimmel<\/a>\u2018s anger.<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety scheduled this sit-down interview with the Emmy-winning host, producer and comedian occurred in mid-July just after he found out he had landed four Primetime Emmy nominations for outstanding talk series (ABC\u2019s \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d), short form comedy, drama or variety series (YouTube\u2019s \u201cThe Rabbit Hole with Jimmy Kimmel\u201d), game show (as an executive producer) and game show host (ABC\u2019s \u201cWho Wants to be a Millionaire\u201d). <\/p>\n

\n\tThe schedule of this interview was before \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert\u201d was cancelled by CBS<\/a>, just after the FCC announced it approved the merger between Paramount and Skydance Studios. Many industry analysts, critics and more have expressed their feelings as a move that bends the knee by the Trump administration. Many media analysts have shared knowledge from direct insiders that Colbert\u2019s show that has been airing since 2015, has been losing $40 million per year.<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel is calling bullshit \u2014 and he\u2019s not stopping there.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was initially planned as a conversation about his Emmy nominations quickly transformed into an industry veteran\u2019s passionate defense of late-night television and a masterclass in media economics. Kimmel, clearly frustrated by what he sees as widespread misinformation about his industry, actively encouraged deeper questions about the business side of television, affiliate fees and the evolving landscape of comedy programming. His message was clear: the reports of late-night\u2019s death have been greatly exaggerated.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a wide-ranging and candid interview with Variety, Kimmel dismantles industry misconceptions with the precision of someone who\u2019s been in the trenches for decades, discusses his deep love and admiration for Colbert (and why he\u2019s voting for him<\/a>), in addition to sharing an untold Matt Damon story that will be equal parts hilarious and perfectly on brand.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tWHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? \u2013 \u201cEpisode 40 (Disney\/Christopher Willard) \u2014 KEN JENNINGS, MATT DAMON, JIMMY KIMMEL
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisney<\/p>\n

\n\tCongratulations on being greedy with Emmy nominations this year \u2014 you got three. At 57 years old, did you ever think you\u2019d be in this position?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI never thought I\u2019d be in this position in the first place. I wanted to be a disc jockey on a radio station, and had I been able to get a job in my hometown of Las Vegas, I don\u2019t know that I ever would have left. I would almost certainly have been fired from that job and forced to leave, based on my history. But this is all much more than I ever imagined it would be.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve put up a billboard on Santa Monica and La Cienega declaring you\u2019re voting for Stephen Colbert<\/a> this year. What\u2019s your mindset behind that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, it seems like voting for Stephen is the least we could do at this point, and I think it will be a nice statement if he does win. Obviously, awards don\u2019t mean much, but every once in a while they do, and in this case, I think it will. So I fully expect Stephen to win the Emmy as I think people are very, very upset about what happened to him and his show.<\/p>\n

\n\tTalk about your game show host nomination. What was different about getting into that gig?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI started as a game show host. My first television job was as the co-host on \u201cWin Ben Stein\u2019s Money\u201d on Comedy Central. In our first year, Ben and I won the Emmy for best game show host. We\u2019d never been to an award show of any kind. We couldn\u2019t believe we were even nominated. I think the only reason we were nominated was because there weren\u2019t that many game shows on the air. The idea that we would beat Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak \u2014 we had no thoughts planned, no delusions. We were just excited to be flown to New York for the Emmy Awards. And then when we won, I gave my Emmy to Susan Lucci, who \u2014 when you talk about losing streaks \u2014 is the most famous actress with one of all time. So when I won, Ben had used all the time talking, and I just said, it\u2019s ridiculous that we\u2019re here for the first time and we won the Emmy and Susan Lucci is sitting there, and she doesn\u2019t have one. I walked down, she was in the front row, and I handed her my Emmy, and went back to my seat.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve shown great camaraderie with the other late-night hosts, especially during the Colbert situation. Talk about those friendships.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe are really close. We became especially close during the strike. We had long, fun conversations about how to handle the situation and decided to do a podcast. Now it\u2019s a text chain \u2014 a frequent one. I think we were all shocked and disappointed that this kind of thing is happening in America, and also disappointed that we don\u2019t see more people on the right stepping up and saying, \u201cHey, this is no good.\u201d Silencing comedians, commentators, whatever you want to call people\u2026 I have to say, if Joe Biden had used his muscle to get Sean Hannity kicked off the air, you may be surprised to learn that I would not support that. I would, in fact, support Sean Hannity in that situation, because I thought one of the founding principles of this country was free speech. But people don\u2019t seem to care about protecting it unless you agree with them.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of that text chain, any chance that Defense Secretary and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth has been added to that chain \u201cby accident\u201d to expose war plans?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOnly inadvertently.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere have been reports that Colbert\u2019s show was losing $40 million a year. What\u2019s your take on that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI just want to say that the idea that Stephen Colbert\u2019s show was losing $40 million a year is beyond nonsensical. These alleged insiders who supposedly analyze the budgets of the shows \u2014 I don\u2019t know who they are, but I do know they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about. They seem to only be focused on advertising revenue and have completely forgotten about affiliate fees, which number in the hundreds of millions \u2014 probably in total billions \u2014 and you must allocate a certain percentage of those fees to late-night shows. It really is surprising how little the media seems to know about how the media works. There\u2019s just not a snowball\u2019s chance in hell that that\u2019s anywhere near accurate. Even that \u2014 that\u2019s all you need to know. Suddenly he\u2019s losing $40 million a year? I will tell you, the first 10 years I did the show, they claimed we weren\u2019t making any money \u2014 and we had five times as many viewers on ABC as we do now. Who knows what\u2019s true? All I know is they keep paying us \u2014 and that\u2019s kind of all you need to know.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat about the narrative that late-night television is dead?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNetwork television is declining. There\u2019s no question about that. But more people are watching late-night television than ever before \u2014 and I include Johnny Carson in that. People may find that shocking. When Carson was at his peak, he was getting around 9 million viewers a night. That\u2019s huge. Of course, the lead-in shows were getting 30 and 40 million, which was a big part of it. But people are still watching late-night \u2014 just in different places. Our monologues get between 2 and 5 million views, sometimes more, every night. Seth Meyers gets 2 million on YouTube alone. We\u2019re not even talking about Instagram or the other platforms. \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d \u2014 Jon Stewart on a Monday night will get 5 million views. Then you add in the TV ratings. So the idea that late-night is dead is simply untrue. People just aren\u2019t watching it on network television in the numbers they used to \u2014 or live, for that matter. So the advertising model may be dying, but late-night television is the opposite. If you look at streaming numbers \u2014 how many streaming shows get 10 million views a week? Twenty million? Very few. I think if you really look at how people are watching these shows, and the numbers, it\u2019s right up there with the top shows on Netflix and Hulu. Yet in the media, you\u2019d think this is a rotting corpse \u2014 which it most certainly is not. It just doesn\u2019t add up. It\u2019s a great storyline for the press, but it\u2019s simply not true.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy should people vote for Stephen Colbert at the Emmys<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s not just a sweet man. He is very moral \u2014 he\u2019s a very ethical person. He is the salt of the earth. He is a humble person and an extremely smart person. I hope that whatever he does next is even more powerful than what he\u2019d been doing. And I think that\u2019s very possible.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou have an untold Matt Damon story. Can you share it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMatt Damon was over at my house one night for dinner. I made pork ribs. He came late, was very hungry, and started eating fast. He started choking on a pork rib. It was stuck in his throat for about an hour and a half. His brother was there. I said, \u201cWe have got to get him to the hospital,\u201d because if he dies in my house, I\u2019m going to prison for the rest of my life. I will never be able to explain this as anything other than a murder. We did a lot of YouTube-ing and finally concluded that eating little bits of bread was the way to get that rib to work its way down into his stomach \u2014 and bread saved him. We tried the Heimlich many times. It was too far down.<\/p>\n

\n\tAny final thoughts on the current political climate and Trump?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI saw him [Trump] get booed at the WWE event the other night, and it really cheered me up. Like, you know what? If Trump is getting booed at wrestling, America is starting to catch on.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 77th Emmy Awards, hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze, will air live on Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. ET\/5 p.m. PT on CBS and stream simultaneously on select Paramount+ packages.<\/p>\n

\t\tSee all of Variety\u2019s Award Predictions\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
Awards Circuit Predictions: Emmys<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s something refreshing about Jimmy Kimmel\u2018s anger. Variety scheduled this sit-down interview with the Emmy-winning host, producer and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":156239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[30046,171,11171,13895,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-156238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-emmys","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","11":"tag-stephen-colbert","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115050908846318793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}