Jimmy Kimmel returns bigger than ever

In spite of Brendan Carr’s efforts, the return of Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show is breaking viewership records on YouTube, and ratings of the first return broadcast were the show’s highest in a decade. Tuesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! contained Kimmel’s most-watched monologue ever on the video platform, a 28-minute segment addressing the censorship, which has reached more than 19 million views at the time of writing.

The increased online viewership could include people who are unable to watch the show on network television and are flocking to YouTube instead, as Nexstar and Sinclair continue to block it from being broadcast on roughly one-quarter of ABC stations. Preliminary Nielsen figures cited by ABC and reported by The New York Times, which don’t include streaming viewership, show that Tuesday’s episode averaged 6.2 million viewers — nearly four times higher than Kimmel’s usual audience. These figures are preliminary and expected to grow in the coming days.

Poetically, the party that made such a public push to get Kimmel kicked off the airwaves has unintentionally amplified his platform, even while 20 percent of ABC affiliates have bent the knee and boycotted the show.

Update, September 25th: Updated with additional ratings details.

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