Jimmy Kimmel and ABC agreed on a three-year contract extension for Kimmel to continue hosting and executive-producing Jimmy Kimmel Live! The extension will keep Kimmel on ABC through season 23.

"For 20 years, Jimmy Kimmel has been a huge part of the ABC family and the heartbeat of late-night television," said Craig Erwich, president, ABC Entertainment, Hulu & Disney Branded Television Streaming Originals. “Not only has he entertained our audiences night after night with his sharp comedy, dynamic interviews and irreverent humor, but he has gotten us through some of the most momentous events in our history with optimism and heart. There is no one funnier and more authentic than Jimmy. We are so proud of the incredibly talented team at Jimmy Kimmel Live! and could not be happier to continue our partnership.”

Jimmy Kimmel Live! premiered in January 2003. Broadcasting from the El Capitan Entertainment Centre on Hollywood Boulevard, it airs at 11:35 p.m. ET. Kimmel, Erin Irwin, Molly McNearney, Jennifer Sharron and David Craig are executive producers. 

“After two decades at ABC, I am now looking forward to three years of what they call ‘quiet quitting,’ ” said Kimmel.

Kimmel hosted the Oscars in 2017 and 2018 and the Emmys in 2012, 2016 and 2020. He’s also the host and executive producer of ABC’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials with Norman Lear and is creator/executive producer of game-show Generation Gap. ■  

Jimmy Kimmel delivered an emotional monologue about the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school May 25 on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and the monologue was interrupted by a commercial break on WFAA Dallas. An emotional Kimmel spoke for close to nine minutes about the murders, and gun control. He singled out Senator Ted Cruz and Texas governor Greg Abbott, among others, for their responsibility in such incidents. 

WFAA is owned by Tegna. The station said, “Unfortunately, the automated system that triggers commercials aired the first commercial break in error, interrupting Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue. The same technical error also impacted two commercial breaks later in the program, not just the one interrupting the monologue.”

WFAA apologized, and offered the full monologue at WFAA.com. The website’s headline read, “Jimmy Kimmel delivers powerful monologue in wake of Uvalde elementary school shooting, lambasting legislators for lack of action.” The story said. “Technical issues prevented the entirety of Kimmel's monologue from airing in full on WFAA.”

Nineteen children and two adults were killed in the mass shooting. 

Early on May 26, Kimmel said on Twitter, “To my friends in Dallas who are asking: I do not know whether our @ABCNetwork affiliate @wfaa cut away from my monologue tonight intentionally or inadvertently but I will find out. In the meantime, here's what you didn't get to see.”

He then offered a link to his monologue on YouTube. 

Moments ago, he tweeted, “I've known the staff at @wfaa personally and professionally for almost 20 years and believe this mistake was made unintentionally. Thanks for reposting and for correcting this error. Sending love to all my friends in Texas.”

WFAA shared a statement on the mishap: "WFAA apologizes for technical difficulties that interrupted Jimmy Kimmel Live at multiple points, including during his monologue on gun control."

In the monologue, Kimmel urged lawmakers who oppose gun control to rethink their position. “It’s OK to admit you made a mistake,” he said. “In fact it’s not just OK, it’s necessary to admit you made a mistake when your mistake is killing the children in your state."

“It takes a big person to do something like that,” Kimmel continued. “It takes a brave person to do something like that.” ■

ABC said that its late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be returning to Brooklyn, New York, in the fall.

Five shows will be taped in front of a live audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House.

Kimmel has produced shows from Brooklyn five times before. 

He is expected to make his nearly annual appearance at Disney's upfront Wednesday event at which he scorches ad buyers and sellers, including Disney.

ABC said the exact show dates and the names of guests will be released at another time.

Kimmel’s previous guests on Brooklyn shows have included Eddie Murphy, Alicia Keys, Cardi B, David Letterman, Howard Stern, Tracy Morgan, Jay Z, Kanye West and Chris Rock.

Kimmel, Erin Irwin, Molly McNearney, Jennifer Sharron and David Craig serve as executive producers; Douglas DeLuca serves as co-executive producer. Jimmy Kimmel Live! is produced by 1205 AM Productions LLC in association with Kimmelot and ABC Signature. ■

Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, is taking the summer off. On the June 18 program, Kimmel announced it was his last show for the summer. “Jimmy is taking time off to spend even more time with his family. He’s been doing this job for almost 18 years, 130 shows, and will be taking a few months off,” said ABC.

“There’s nothing wrong, my family is healthy, I’m healthy,” said Kimmel, who added that “a cavalcade of very kind and capable people will be filling in for me. I think you’ll be very happy with them.”

Kimmel added that the show goes “on vacation” for two weeks starting June 22, then resumes with the guest hosts. 

As Kimmel made the announcement from his home, Matt Damon emerged from his bedroom. 

Kimmel is hosting the Emmys on ABC in September. 

In a matter of weeks, COVID-19 has upended industries across the board, including entertainment and media companies that have had to close down studio productions. Many are now pivoting to social video as a way to connect with audiences and deliver a much-needed escape via entertainment content.

A new report from social video analytics company Tubular Labs shows how audience consumption of entertainment content is changing during the pandemic. It explores how influencers, especially late-night hosts, are leaning into video to keep their fans entertained. But first, some topline insights from the report:

Entertainment Category Reigns Supreme for Social Video

When it comes to social video, the entertainment category is the No. 1 creator genre on YouTube and Facebook for both views and uploads across the last year. Although entertainment influencers upload more videos, media companies make up a slightly larger share of views.

Related: Late Night Shows Are Back with ‘WFH’ Formats

Not only do U.S. creators account for the most views of entertainment content worldwide (132 billion in the last year), U.S. entertainment content attracts a global audience, with 35% of its views coming from outside the U.S.

"Digital video's reach has no boundaries,” said Rob Gabel, CEO at Tubular Labs. “With the world awash in anxiety and people physically separated, right now — more than ever — video entertainment is a catalyst for banding global citizens together and providing much-needed optimism during these unprecedented times."

When it comes to entertainment content types, the TV and movies category makes up the biggest portion of views on YouTube (112 billion in the last year). For videos uploaded between March 12 and April 3 as the coronavirus pandemic spread and many Americans were forced to shelter at home, TV-related content amassed 564 million views, with nearly half (253 million views) coming from late-night talk shows, led by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (A&E and American Idol also rank high).

Late-Night Hosts See Explosion in Views With “Stay-at-Home” Shows

With production studios now closed, late-night TV show hosts are taking to social video to bridge the gap and bring fans new content from their own homes — and it seems to be working. The ‘Home Edition’ of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon received a significantly higher V7 views rating (views in the first seven days since a video was published) in the last couple of weeks than the show did over the last year (1.2 million vs. 517K). Jimmy Kimmel’s series of quarantine “minilogue” videos reached higher V7 views than his show throughout the last year (1.1 million vs. 419K). And virtually hosting late-night concerts has been a successful approach, most notably for James Corden of The Late Late Show in recent weeks (962K vs. 599K).

"During this quarantine, celebrities are as human and relatable as ever,” said Gabel. “There’s something fun about seeing your favorite host broadcasting from their personal domain. It makes us feel a kind of solidarity because even celebrities are affected by the quarantine, and they’re still doing whatever they can to bring joy to fans around the world."

How Live Streaming Fits Into the Picture

While indie influencers are used to producing content live and are thus thriving in these times, media companies can tap into this trend too. Entertainment influencers are still getting more of people’s live watch time, but media companies have been catching up in the weeks after the outbreak, with 66% growth.

But there’s also an opportunity for media companies to tap into their rich content repository and repurpose their best performing evergreen content: 66% of the U.S. entertainment content watched from the start of the outbreak is content from 2019 or older.

You can download the full entertainment report from Tubular Labs here. 

Multichannel News has teamed up with social video analytics company Tubular Labs for a recurring look at how various content creators are deploying video to reach audiences online. In this edition, we look at Jimmy Kimmel’s steady social video growth and his rise to the top of the late night viral video space.

Creator Profile & Essential Stats

Name: Jimmy Kimmel Live

Genre: Entertainment

Followers: 3.9 million followers on Facebook and 11.8 million subscribers on YouTube

Some pundits fretted that Jimmy Kimmel’s passionate monologues on health care reform might cost him fans (such as those who disagree with him, or simply object to a talk show host taking strong political positions), but his social video stats show just the opposite. Kimmel has seen steady growth in his engagement over the last three months, with his YouTube following rising by a few hundred thousand each month. In April, Kimmel was No. 5 among U.S. overall creators in the entertainment space and No. 18 in the global media and entertainment chart, based on YouTube views.

Related: YouTube Crushes Facebook Among Teens

While his comedy can be specific to U.S. issues, Kimmel does boast a wide international following—in fact, only 42% of his YouTube views come from the U.S. The UK and Canada account for 5.8% and 5.1% of his viewership, respectively, but he’s also popular in India and Brazil.

Now, a closer look at Kimmel’s performance on YouTube in the last 30 days:

His most-viewed video on the platform is part of his popular “Mean Tweets” series in which celebrities read cruel tweets that people have sent about them. This one was the “Avengers Edition,” and since it was posted on May 1 it’s racked up 17.4 million views.

The Kimmel video at No. 2 is “Donald Glover on This is America Music Video” with 7.1 million views; in it, Glover discussed his latest (massively viral) Childish Gambino video.

The third most popular Kimmel video on YouTube is an interview with 15-year-old Deadpool 2 actor Julian Dennison, who said he can’t see his own movie because it’s rated R-16 in his home country of New Zealand.