Disney President Dana Walden refused to say whether Jimmy Kimmel will keep his ABC show, calling late night a very challenging daypart while ratings rise only against a shrinking broadcast audience.

Walden spoke with Bloomberg on Thursday and would not commit to renewing Jimmy Kimmel Live! beyond its current deal. She framed the decision as a hard business call, not a personal slight.

“I’m not going to make that announcement here with you today,” Walden said, according to Breitbart News reporting on the exchange.

The host sits on a one-year contract extension signed in December 2025 that carries the show through the 2026-27 season. After that, nothing is locked in.

Walden calls late night a tough daypart for premium talk

Walden did not soft-pedal the numbers. Late-night broadcast television has a smaller audience than it once did, and the math is getting harder for a high-cost talk show.

“The truth is, it’s a very challenging daypart,” she told interviewers. “That’s not to say that Jimmy is not doing a phenomenal job, and his ratings are up. But they’re up relative to a smaller audience that’s watching late night on broadcast television.” Fox News carried the same remarks.

Online clips and social reach do not close the gap. Walden said a strong digital presence “is not a lucrative opportunity for a very premium talk show.” On-air advertising still drives the real money, and that pool is thinner.

She added that Disney is “trying to make sense of the business while also honoring a deep partnership.” The New York Post noted the contract runs through May 2027 and that Walden would not say whether Kimmel returns after it ends.

Walden also stressed personal ties. “I love Jimmy, we have great friendship. He’s close to a number of the people at Disney.” Still, she said the company is weighing “what does Jimmy want, what’s the right thing to do, and what’s the right thing for our business.”

Page Six end-of-run claim meets ABC pushback

Last month, Page Six reported the show would end in 2027 after 24 years on air because the contract would not be renewed. ABC answered that any such reports “are purely speculative.”

That denial has not ended the speculation. Walden’s refusal to lock in a longer future only keeps the question alive for affiliates, advertisers, and viewers who have watched late-night audiences erode for years.

Readers tracking the same contract timeline will recall earlier coverage that Jimmy Kimmel's late-night run reportedly ending in 2027 after 24 years on ABC already put the end date in public view.

Budget cuts hit the band and the stage

Earlier this year ABC ordered major budget cuts on the show. Musical performances dropped to two per week, down from one every broadcast night, a 60 percent reduction.

Those cuts arrived after a turbulent stretch. Last year the show was briefly suspended following Kimmel’s remarks about the killing of Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder. Days later Disney and ABC announced the program would return.

The suspension-and-return episode left the network managing both internal costs and external pressure. It also left outside observers asking how long a high-overhead monologue show can run when the linear audience keeps shrinking.

Kimmel’s recent monologues have kept him in the political crosshairs, including segments that used a doctored Usha Vance diaper-bank ad for partisan shots.

Guest hosts and boycott flashpoints add noise

The show’s guest-host stretches have produced their own headaches. One high-profile stint ended with Rosie O’Donnell delivering a parody song aimed at Trump, another moment that underscored how the program leans into culture-war material even as the business case tightens.

Separate fallout hit when country star Jelly Roll faced boycott calls after anti-Trump jokes aired on the program, a reminder that the monologue-first formula still carries brand risk for guests and the network alike.

Coverage of that episode captured how Jelly Roll dared fans to boycott after the anti-Trump jokes landed on air.

Another guest-host chapter saw Rosie O'Donnell cap her stint with a parody song aimed at Trump, keeping the show’s political brand front and center.

Partnership talk meets hard numbers

Walden’s language mixed loyalty with ledger sheets. She praised Kimmel’s work and personal relationships inside Disney, then immediately returned to the shrinking late-night audience and the limits of digital revenue.

That tension is the story. A premium talk show costs real money. Broadcast ratings are smaller. Streaming and YouTube views do not replace the old ad dollars. A one-year bridge deal through the 2026-27 season buys time, not certainty.

ABC’s earlier dismissal of the Page Six report as speculative still stands on the record. Walden’s Thursday comments did not convert that speculation into a renewal. They left the business question exactly where she found it, open, expensive, and unresolved.

Kimmel has also drawn White House criticism for FCC censorship claims that lacked evidence, another flashpoint in a long-running fight over how late-night hosts use their platforms.

That dispute surfaced when the White House called out media for repeating Kimmel's FCC censorship claim without evidence.

For now the show continues under the current extension. The next decision belongs to Disney’s balance sheet as much as to any friendship on the lot.

When the audience shrinks and the ad dollars thin out, even a long-running monologue machine eventually faces the same test every other business does: whether the politics still pay the bills.