This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Jimmy Kimmel, a late-night television entertainer, was taken off the air briefly after he made a horrific comment, styled as a "joke," about the death of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk.
He suggested that conservatives were trying to portray the suspected killer, who could face the death penalty, as anyone other than one of them.
In fact, multiple testimonies have confirmed the suspect had turned far to leftist activities and agendas.
So Kimmel was silenced, briefly, before several networks that had objected to his joking about the death of a Christian man allowed his return.
On that night, his audience was huge.
Then it crashed.
His number plunged by 70%.
And online was an explanation: "People stopped to see the car crash for a minute, but then kept on driving."
A report at BizPacReview said his "comeback" "was embarrassingly short-lived."
"Since his return to the airwaves, Kimmel has enjoyed a significant boost in support from leftists who wanted to stick it to Republicans. On Tuesday, he saw a record 6.3 million average viewers, many of whom undoubtedly turned in to see what he would say about his suspension. But on Wednesday night, he only managed to pull 2,414,000 average viewership, which is leagues above his normal average of 1.7 million but constitutes a 70% drop from the previous day."
In fact, Kimmel's audience has been dropping steadily for a long time.
ABC, Sinclair Broadcast Group and others took him down, but then restored him to America's airwaves.
"Between Kimmel making around $17 million a year, his large staff, and the show's production out of Los Angeles, ABC is almost certainly losing money on the program," wrote Outkick's Bobby Burack. "For comparison, CBS is losing around $40 million per year by producing Stephen Colbert's competing late-night program, which draws 30% more viewers than Kimmel's."
Kimmel's contract is coming to an end, and that could offer a solution to the network with an unwanted drain in their budget.
The substance of Kimmel's offense was described online; "Jimmy Kimmel lied to millions of people and claimed Kirk was assassinated by a MAGA conservative. Charlie Kirk was gunned down by a far-left, pro-transgender radical who hated him for his conservative political views."
