Jimmy Kimmel’s Return Ratings: 6.3 Million Viewers on ABC

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” returned to the air with a whopping 6.3 million viewers on Tuesday — its most-watched regularly scheduled episode ever.

The series has only seen a larger audience than that twice in its history, during special Sunday episodes that aired directly after the 2006 Super Bowl and the 2014 Oscars.

Tuesday’s broadcast also represents a 343% increase from the previous season’s average of 1.4 million viewers.

Tuesday’s total, which comes from preliminary Live + Same Day data from Nielsen, would have been even higher if the episode had been available nationwide.

However, because Nexstar and Sinclair have continued to preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on their stations after Disney lifted the show’s suspension, it did not air in 23% of U.S.

households.

Among adults aged 18-49, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” hit a 0.87 rating, marking a 568% increase from the previous season’s average rating of 0.13 as well as the best demo rating for a regularly scheduled episode since 2015.

During Tuesday’s broadcast, Kimmel joked about the strong viewership his return episode was likely to achieve.

Throughout the six days that “Jimmy Kimmel Live” was off the air, Donald Trump, Fox News anchors and other critics of Kimmel claimed that the show gets “no ratings.” “Well, I do tonight!” Kimmel said in his monologue.

“You almost have to feel sorry for [Trump].

He tried his best to cancel me.

Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show.

That backfired bigly.

He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now.”

Kimmel spent most of the monologue emphasizing the importance of free speech and thanking those who pointed to the First Amendment throughout his suspension.

After shouting out his fellow late night hosts, who share his liberal politics, he said, “Maybe most of all, I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway.

People I never would have imagined, like Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul.

Even my old pal Ted Cruz, who, believe it or not, said something very beautiful on my behalf.”

“Even though I don’t agree with many of those people on most subjects, some of the things they say even make me want to throw up, it takes courage for them to speak out against this administration, and they did, and they deserve credit for it,” he continued.