"Anyway, as I was saying before I was interrupted," began Jimmy Kimmel as he returned to his late-night comedy show on Sept. 23 with better ratings than he had seen for years.Kimmel's comeback brought the show's highest viewership in a decade among adults 18 to 49 years old.The return to ABC followed a decision by Disney, the network's parent company, to preempt the late-night comedy show "indefinitely" after comments Kimmel made on his Sept. 16 episode about the accused killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.Here's a closer look at Jimmy Kimmel's rebound:Note: Numbers based on Nielsen's preliminary figures, and do not reflect streaming views.Can't see our graphics? Click here.ABC shared on Sept. 24 that 6.26 million viewers watched "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" despite affiliates owned by media companies Sinclair and Nexstar refusing to air the show. Kimmel's monologue garnered more than 26 million views on social media, according to ABC. The YouTube post of the monologue had over 20 million views as of Sept. 25.The episode earned a 0.87 rating among adults ages 18 to 49, making it "the show’s highest regularly scheduled episode in over 10 years," per an ABC news release. In the 2024-25 TV season, Nielsen reported "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" averaged 1.6 million viewers, as cited by The New York Times and NBC News.Kimmel played a clip of President Donald Trump talking about the late-night host to reporters during the episode:"Anybody could replace him," Trump said in the recording. "Guy had no talent. Kimmel had, look, he was fired, he had no talent. He's a wack job, but he had no talent, and more importantly than talent because a lot of people have no talent, they get ratings, but he had no ratings."Kimmel waited for applause to build before saying: "Well, I do tonight."Where is Jimmy Kimmel not being aired?Kimmel managed to gain a sharp increase in viewership despite his show not airing on affiliates owned by Nexstar Media or Sinclair Broadcast Group, as both companies continue to preempt the program.What did Kimmel say about Kirk?ABC's parent company, Disney, halted production on Kimmel's show two days after he said Trump’s supporters were eager to characterize Kirk’s assassin "as anything other than one of them" and accused them of trying to "score political points" from his killing. You can view the show here:Why did Jimmy Kimmel get canceled?Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened an investigation and urged television stations to drop Kimmel's show or face possible fines and revocation of their broadcast licenses."We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr said.On Sept. 22, in a post to X, Sinclair said it planned to replace the show with news programming, stating that "discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return."Jimmy Kimmel's opening monologue from 9/23/25Can the 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' show ride this wave?After the initial buzz of the Sept. 23 monologue with over 20 million YouTube views, Kimmel's monologues remain higher than those posted in the month before his suspension. A Sept. 24 monologue has 5.9 million views as of Sept. 25 at 5:30 p.m. Eastern.Kimmel joked about the conditions Disney imposed to allow the return of the show: "To reactivate your Disney+ and Hulu account, open the Disney+ app on your smart TV or TV-connected device." Disney lost subscribers over Kimmel's suspension.Contributing: Kelly Lawler