The Wading Is the Hardest Part

“Kimmel insists that ‘there are far more people watching late-night TV than there ever were, if you look at the number of views me and my colleagues get online every day and add in our linear-television ratings,’ and that it’s ‘silly’ to call the format less relevant: ‘We’re not just dying of natural causes. We’re being poisoned.’ He points to reports that, in 2023, CBS encouraged Colbert to sign a five-year contract. ​Colbert opted for three years instead. When CBS​ pulled his show two years into ​that contract, the explanation ​given was that it was losing significant amounts of money — reportedly $40 million a year.​ Why, Kimmel asks, would the network offer him a five-year deal in the first place if the show were hemorrhaging money? … ‘These are just made-up numbers.'” NY Mag: Jimmy Kimmel Would Stop If He Could. (I can’t imagine what it must be like to wake up every morning and know you have to absorb, reflect upon, and joke about every horrible Trump story of the day. And you can’t really quit, even if you planned to by now, because it would be like giving up the good fight at the worst possible time. Oh wait, I can imagine what that’s like.) Kimmel: “Professionally, I have no idea what I’m going to do after this … Freedom is what I want more than anything. I want to be able to go fishing because the fishing’s good.” Alas, for now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.