Disney President I Love Jimmy Kimmel But ... Late-Night Is Not Lucrative

Published October 1, 2026 1:19 PM PDT

Disney President Dana Walden wants to make 2 things clear -- she's a huge Jimmy Kimmel fan, and trying to make late-night TV make business sense is no joke.

In a chat with Bloomberg's Screentime Thursday, Walden called late-night programming in general "very challenging" at that time slot ... Variety reported.

The Disney CCO added ... "That's not to say that Jimmy is not doing a phenomenal job, and his ratings are up, but they're up relative to a smaller audience that's watching late night on broadcast television."

While acknowledging the millions who watch his YouTube segments, Dana said that "is not a lucrative opportunity for a very premium talk show."

Dana added ... "I love Jimmy. We have a great friendship. He's close to a number of the people at Disney, and again, we're trying to work through it and make sense of both. What does Jimmy want? What's the right thing to do, and what's the right thing for our business?"

As we told you ... ABC pushed back on a report last month that the network would not renew Jimmy's contract in May 2027.

However ... a source told us at the time that Jimmy was busy pitching other shows and podcasts around Hollywood.

Jimmy was briefly taken off the air last year when the network suspended him over remarks he made about Charlie Kirk's death.

He returned six days later ... and drew 6.26 million total viewers ... the show's largest regularly scheduled audience in more than 10 years.