Jimmy Kimmel Live Wins Late-Night Premiere Week
Jimmy Kimmel Live has opened the 2026-2027 season as late night's most-watched broadcast show.
ABC's 11:35 p.m. show won premiere week in both total viewers and adults 18-49, the age group advertisers track most closely. For the week of Sept. 21, it averaged 2.29 million viewers and a 0.21 rating in that demo, Variety reported on Sept. 29.
Those figures are live-plus-same-day ratings, meaning live viewing plus any playback on the same day. The premiere-week numbers used big data plus panel ratings, which combine set-top and smart-TV data with Nielsen's viewer panel.
In the 11:35 p.m. hour, Kimmel led The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon by a wide margin. Fallon averaged 1.3 million viewers for the week. CBS aired Comics Unleashed in the hour, averaging 704,000 viewers in the first half hour and 521,000 in the second.
The result extends two streaks. It is the second year in a row that Kimmel has opened the season at No. 1 in both total viewers and adults 18-49. In the 18-49 demo alone, it is his fifth straight premiere-week win.
The new season started just below the show's end to last season. For the week of Sept. 14, the final three-night week of the 2025-2026 TV season, Kimmel averaged 2.34 million viewers and a 0.22 rating in adults 18-49.
What makes this stand out is the longer run behind it. For the full 2025-2026 season, Jimmy Kimmel Live averaged 2 million viewers. That was its most-watched season in eight years, since 2017-2018. It also averaged a 0.18 rating in adults 18-49, ranking No. 1 across late night and its best demo result in four years, since 2021-2022.
