LOCALIZE IT: Kimmel is back on ABC, but some affiliates still refuse to air his show. See which ones
EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS:
Jimmy Kimmel is back on his ABC late-night show, but it’s still a mystery when — or if — viewers in cities such as Washington, Seattle, and St. Louis will be able to see him again on their televisions.
ABC stations owned by the Nexstar and Sinclair corporations took Kimmel off the air last week on the same day the network suspended him for comments that angered supporters of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Those stations kept him off the air Tuesday, when ABC lifted the suspension. The unusual dispute attracted the attention of U.S. senators, who said they wanted to investigate the relationship between the affiliates and President Donald Trump’s administration.
Kimmel returned with no apologies, but in an emotional monologue where he appeared close to tears, the host said that he was not trying to joke about the assassination. He also paid tribute to Kirk’s widow.
And it got a large audience, with ABC reporting nearly 6.3 million people tuned in to the broadcast alone, despite the blackouts in many cities. As is often the case with late-night hosts’ monologues, there was a larger audience online, with more than 15 million people watching Kimmel’s opening remarks on YouTube by Wednesday evening. ABC says more than 26 million people watched Kimmel’s return on social media, including YouTube.
Typically, he gets about 1.8 million viewers each night on television. The numbers released by ABC do not include viewership from streaming services.
A spokesman for Nexstar said Wednesday that Kimmel will continue to be preempted from its stations while the company evaluates his show. Together, the Nexstar and Sinclair groups account for about a quarter of ABC’s affiliates, many in smaller cities such as Nashville, Tennessee; Lubbock, Texas; or Topeka, Kansas.
“We are engaged in productive discussions with executives at the (ABC parent) Walt Disney Co., with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve,” Nexstar said.
___
READ AP’S STORY
Kimmel is back on ABC to big ratings, but some affiliates still refuse to air his show
___
FIND YOUR COMMUNITY: NEXTSTAR AND SINCLAIR ABC AFFILIATE STATIONS
Use this AP map to see where viewers cannot watch Jimmy Kimmel’s show on broadcast television. An embed code for the map is below.
See a list of individual Nextstar stations here. A list of Sinclair stations, sortable by affiliate, can be found here. Read more about the two companies here.
___
USE THIS MAP
The following digital embed shows you where you can’t watch the Jimmy Kimmel show on broadcast television. It highlights the media markets where ABC affiliate operators, Nexstar and Sinclair, have refused to air Kimmel’s show. This map is current as of Sept. 24, 2025 and will not update. Source: Nexstar; Sinclair
To embed, insert this code into your CMS:
!– start AP embed —
iframe title=“Where you can’t watch Jimmy Kimmel’s show” aria-label=“Choropleth map” id=“ap-chart-G3pt4” src=“https://interactives.ap.org/embeds/G3pt4/2/” scrolling=“no” width=“100%” style=“border:none” height=“455″/iframescript type=“text/javascript”!function()(“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(e)(if(void 0!==e.data(“datawrapper-height”))(var t=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var a in e.data(“datawrapper-height”))for(var r=0;rt.length;r++)(if(t(r).contentWindow===e.source)t(r).style.height=e.data(“datawrapper-height”)(a)+“px”))))))();/script
!– end AP embed —
___
READ ADDITIONAL AP COVERAGE
What to know about Jimmy Kimmel’s return to his late-night TV show
In Jimmy Kimmel’s words: What the late-night host said upon his return from suspension
Emotional Jimmy Kimmel says in late-night return he never intended to make light of Kirk’s killing
___
Localize It is a resource produced regularly by The Associated Press for its customers’ use. Questions can be directed to the Local News Success team at localizeit@ap.org.
