Earlier this week, tabloid reports had Jimmy Kimmel standing down from his late-night ABC show after his contract ends in May.
That was not true, as evidenced by the fact that it has emerged that Kimmel is in talks to renew his deal for another year, Deadline has confirmed.
Kimmel and Disney are in those talks at the moment. The wrinkle? ABC reportedly is keen to cut the budget of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a move that is becoming increasingly commonplace in late-night television.
This is what happened to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert before CBS axed the entire franchise. Late Night with Seth Meyers has also seen its fair share of cuts recently including the axing of the 8G band with Meyers taking particularly long breaks to cut down on the number of production weeks.
Disney is keen to make cuts across the board. In August, Deadline broke the news that Disney was offering longtime executives early retirement. This came after it started rounds of layoffs, first announced in April, with the elimination of 1,000 jobs with more cuts coming in July, particularly on the Pixar and Nat Geo fronts.
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Deadline also understands that the television division is expecting a restructure in the near future, led by Debra OConnell, who was named Chairman of Disney Entertainment Television in March.
One would imagine even with some cuts to the budget, Kimmel would be keen to continue, at least for a couple more years to see out a certain President, who would likely crow and take credit if the comedian left before him.
Kimmel and his wife Molly McNearney, who is also an exec producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, discussed the topic of retirement recently on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast.
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Shepard asked Kimmel if he would regret retirement. “I know people who’ve been in that situation. It’s funny. People make a big show of like ‘I’m done and I’m tired doing this’, and then they make a lesser comeback trying to do the same thing. That’s always a bummer. I always look at that and go, Oh, is that going to be me?,” he said.
“Do you ever think to yourself, ‘How would I explain this to me at 25 years old, just giving up, just letting it go?’ I know that 25-year-old me will be like, ‘Are you crazy?’ I would have just been so excited to work at a place that had a snack table that was free,” he added.
McNearney admitted that Kimmel gets asked this question a lot but “I feel like it changes.”
Puck broke the news of Kimmel’s renewal talks.