Americans approve of Jimmy Kimmel’s return to television by a more than 2-to-1 margin

By a margin of more than two to one, Americans are more likely to approve (58%) than disapprove (25%) of ABC and parent company Disney’s decision to end Jimmy Kimmel’s recent suspension and return him to television, according to a new Yahoo/YouGov poll.

Earlier this month, ABC announced it would be canceling Kimmel’s late-night talk show. Jimmy Kimmel Live!off the air “indefinitely” after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr criticized comments Kimmel made about the motives of the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Carr also suggested that the FCC could revoke ABC affiliates’ licenses as a way to force Disney to punish Kimmel. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said.

President Trump went further, suggesting that “networks” and “evening shows” that “just give me bad publicity” should “maybe” have their licenses revoked.

The Trump administration’s threats of regulatory action led to widespread criticism from free speech advocates, culminating in a celebrity-led boycott of Disney programs and products. ABC announced Kimmel’s return less than a week later.

The new Yahoo/YouGov survey of 1,676 U.S. adults was conducted immediately after Kimmel’s September 23 comeback show. It found that while Americans are divided on whether they approve (38%) or disapprove (40%) of Kimmel’s initial comments, they particularly disapprove of how ABC/Disney – and, to an even greater extent, the Trump administration – responded to them.

• Only 31% of Americans approve of ABC/Disney’s decision to suspend Kimmel at all; a majority (54%) say they disapprove.

• Only 22% of Americans approve of the “federal government threatening regulatory action against media companies over comments like Kimmel’s,” as Carr did earlier this month. More than six in ten (61%) disagree.

• And even fewer Americans (16%) would approve of “the president pursuing regulatory action against media companies because they are critical of him,” as Trump suggested. More than two-thirds (67%) would disapprove.

Diving deeper into the data, a clear partisan pattern emerges. Take Kimmel’s initial suspension: Democrats are far more likely to disapprove of the proposal (90%) than Republicans (62%), while a majority of independents are more likely to disapprove (57%) than approve (24%). Likewise, the share of Democrats (92%) and even independents (63%) who approve of ABC/Disney’s decision to bring back Kimmel is significantly higher than the share of Republicans who disapprove of that decision (53%).

In other words, the reaction to Kimmel’s comments on the right is not strong enough to outweigh the reaction to his suspension on the left and center.

When asked which party is “a greater threat to free speech,” more Americans say Republicans (40%) than Democrats (28%). (Another 22% say the parties are “about the same.”) Among independents, the gap between Republicans (44%) and Democrats (18%) is even wider.

More Americans view Kimmel favorably than unfavorably

After CBS announced in July that it would cancel its long-running late-night program with host Stephen Colbert, Yahoo and YouGov asked a series of similar questions about politics, speech and TV.

But while Colbert’s cancellation was unpopular, 33% approved of it; 40% disapproved – the response to the recent Kimmel controversy was much more skewed in his favor.

Overall, more Americans view Kimmel favorably (46%) than unfavorably (39%). (Trump’s current rating is 43% favorable, 54% unfavorable.) Predictably, Kimmel’s numbers are overwhelmingly positive among those who say he is their favorite late-night host (92% favorable, 6% unfavorable). But he also has a positive image among those who name other late-night hosts as their favorites (56% favorable, 31% unfavorable).

In fact, Americans who say they don’t watch late-night television are the only group to give Kimmel a net negative rating (19% favorable, 58% unfavorable). They also lean or identify as Republican rather than Democrat by a margin of 58% to 19%.

When Americans were asked in July to select up to three of their favorite late-night talk show hosts, Colbert (25%) tied with Jimmy Fallon (25%) for first place, while Kimmel trailed with 22%. But now Kimmel (22%) leads Colbert (21%) and Fallon (20%) by a narrow margin.

Why the shift? A significantly higher number of Democrats now name Kimmel as one of their three favorite late-night hosts: 44% today versus 35% in July. At the same time, Colbert and Fallon have lost some ground among Democrats. And while fewer Republicans still pick Kimmel as the favorite — 7%, down from 13% — it’s not enough to offset his gains across the aisle.

Kimmel is generally seen as liberal (57%) rather than moderate (14%) or conservative (4%). But more Americans (40%) say he is “about right” in his approach to politics than say he is “too political” (35%). Also, more Americans continue to support (45%) rather than oppose (33%) “late-night talk show hosts getting involved in politics by speaking out on political issues.”

__________________

The Yahoo survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,676 U.S. adults who were interviewed online from September 25 to 29, 2025. The sample was weighted by gender, age, race, education, 2024 and presidential election turnout, party identification and current voter registration status. The demographic weighting targets are from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighted by the estimated distribution at the time of the election (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 3%.