The FCC’s efforts to shut down Jimmy Kimmel’s platform have seemingly blown up in its face, with the return of Kimmel’s talk show breaking viewership records on YouTube. Tuesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! contained Kimmel’s most-watched monologue ever on the video platform, a 28-minute segment addressing the censorship which has reached over 19 million views at the time of writing.
The increased viewership could be explained by people who are unable to watch the show on network television flocking to YouTube instead, as Nexstar and Sinclair continue to block it from being broadcast on roughly one-quarter of ABC stations. Nielsen figures reported by The New York Times that don’t include streaming viewership also show that Tuesday’s episode averaged 6.2 million viewers — nearly four times higher than his usual audience. These figures are preliminary and expected to grow in the coming days.
Poetically, it seems the party proclaiming to be the public defenders of “free speech” has unintentionally amplified Kimmel’s platform, even as 20 percent of ABC affiliates have bent the knee and boycotted the show.