Jimmy Kimmel Might Stick Around, But the End of Late Night TV Is Getting Closer

In the new documentary Lorne , a memorable scene sees Lorne Michaels, the Saturday Night Live creator and king of comedy joining his friend Steve Martin for dinner at Orso in Manhattan.

Over the meal, all caught on camera by documentarian Morgan Neville and his team, Martin presses Michaels on whether he will ever actually retire from SNL . Michaels suggests that, whatever his desires may be, he can’t. To protect SNL , and all of its absurd “wasteful” use of resources, he needs to stick around.

Michaels, of course, rules NBC’s late night lineup. He still runs SNL , and oversees both The Tonight Show and Late Night . The doc shows Michaels in prime form, taking an active role across every aspect of the show, munching on popcorn along the way (that popcorn budget may be the first thing to go).

He is, in many ways, the last man standing in late night TV : CBS got out of the game, renting the hour to Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed after canceling both The Late Show and Late Late Show . Stephen Colbert accepted an Emmy Award this week in recognition of his show’s final season.

Jimmy Kimmel will get his own shot at a farewell Emmy sooner rather than later, even if it is unlikely to happen next year, or even the year after.

Last week, the New York Post’s Page Six reported that Kimmel’s show was going to end next year, as his contract would not be extended. ABC denied it at the time. Later in the week Puck filled in some of those gaps: Kimmel and ABC were in fact in talks for another one-year contract extension … but the network wants pretty serious budget cuts, to the tune of 20 percent or so.

Page Six, in other words, was wrong. ABC and Kimmel are in talks for another season, but there can be no assurances that they come to a deal.

The budget cuts are a grim reality of late night. Even NBC’s Tonight Show and Late Night have had them, cutting days of production (on The Tonight Show ), the house band (on Late Night ), and other elements of their formats. Kimmel and ABC are likely to figure out a deal, be it pay cuts, staff reductions, fewer episodes or some combination thereof, but the cuts can only delay the inevitable.

Even Kimmel’s latest deal, a one-year extension, acknowledges the current moment. One year deals give ABC and Kimmel optionality, as soon as either side chooses to act on it. It would have been unheard of a decade ago. The fact that it came amid an FCC-driven war against ABC only heightens the pressure.

Advertising revenue on late night has fallen by 50 percent since 2018, and continues to fall at a rapid clip, according to the media tracking firm Guideline. Revenue from digital platforms is not making up for it.

Ratings are ok, with Kimmel averaging north of 2.7 million viewers in Q2, benefiting from the end of the Late Show, while the Tonight Show averaged 1.4 million, also up compared to the previous year. Late Night averaged 974,000 viewers, while The Daily Show averaged 1.2 million.