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Jimmy Kimmel is giving credit where it’s due … or, at least, where he cheekily suggests it’s due.
Ratings numbers for his pre-summer break shows on Jimmy Kimmel Live! are in, per Variety, and it looks like the show averaged 3.15 million viewers throughout the month of June, which is the late-night show’s best month ever in 23 years.
To celebrate, Kimmel, who is currently on vacation and being filled in for by a coterie of guest hosts, spoke to the trade and took a shot at CBS for cancelling the previous top-rated competitor, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
“The ratings are very strong, which we are very grateful to CBS for their wisdom,” Kimmel said in his statement to Variety. “We were doing pretty well before that, but that really helped.”
Kimmel also said he wants Stephen Colbert to step in as one of his guest hosts during his annual break from the show, but Colbert has thus far declined.
“Of course I asked him, and I think it feels premature,” he said. “But I told him,’ Anytime you want to host, it doesn’t matter if it’s the summer, I’ll gladly step aside.'”
Kimmel has been a fiercely vocal opponent of CBS’s decision to cancel The Late Show.
In May, just before The Late Show‘s final episode, Kimmel announced that his show would go dark in support of Colbert’s grand finale and urged audiences to boycott the network afterward.
“We will be off tomorrow night out of respect for our colleague and friend Stephen Colbert and the writers, producers, staff, and crew at The Late Show, whose finale show on CBS airs opposite ours. I think you know how I feel about the fact that they are being pushed out. I hope the people who did the pushing feel ashamed of themselves tonight, although they probably won’t,” he said in his May 20 monologue. “I hope those of you who watch our show will also tune into CBS for the last time. Don’t ever watch it again, but watch tomorrow night to show Stephen and our friends at The Late Show a fun farewell. Now, let’s talk about the a**hole who forced them off the air.”
The latter reference, of course, was to Donald Trump, whose administration many blame for the cancellation of The Late Show, as, despite CBS’s official stance that the cancellation was due to financial reasons, it is widely believed the move was politically driven, since news of the cancellation decision came shortly after Paramount (CBS’s parent company) reached a $16 million settlement with them and before approval of their merger with Skydance was given by the administration.
Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Weekdays, 11:35/10:35c, ABC
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