by With a margin of more than two on one on one-on-test Americans (58%) instead of (25%) of ABC’s decision and her parent company, Disney, to reject to put an end to the recent suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and let him return to TV, according to a new Yahoo/Yougov-Poll.
Earlier this month ABC announced that it was the talk show of Kimmel Late-Night, Jimmy Kimmel Live!Outside the air “for an indefinite period” after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, criticized the comments that Kimmel made about the motifs of the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Carr also suggested that the FCC could move to withdraw ABC partner licenses as a way to force Disney to punish Kimmel. “We can do this in the easy way or in the hard way,” Carr.
President Trump continued and suggested that “networks” and “evening images” that “only give me bad publicity” should have taken their permits “.
The threats of the Trump government for regulatory action led to widespread criticism from proponents of freedom of expression, culminating in a Boycot of Disney programming and products guided by celebrities. ABC announced Kimmel’s return less than a week later.
The new Yahoo/Yougov survey under 1,676 American adults was carried out immediately after the Comeback show of Kimmel on September 23. It discovered that although Americans were divided about whether they (38%) approve or (40%) of the first comments from Kimmel reject them mainly reject how ABC/Disney – and, to an even greater extent, the Trump administration – reacted to them.
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Only 31% of Americans approve ABC/Disney’s decision to suspend Kimmel in the first place; A majority (54%) say they reject it.
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Only 22% of Americans inspect the “federal government that threatens regulatory action against media companies for comments such as Kimmel’s”, as Carr did earlier this month. More than six in 10 (61%) rejects.
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And even fewer Americans (16%) would approve that “the president strives for that regulatory action against media companies because they are critical of him,” as Trump suggested that he could. More than two -thirds (67%) would reject it.
Deeping deeper into the data, a clearly partisan pattern comes to the fore. Consider the first suspension of Kimmel: Democrats (90%) approve much more than republicans (62%) approve, while a majority of the Independent rejects (57%) instead of approving (24%). Likewise, the share of Democrats (92%) and even independent (63%) who are the decision of ABC/Disney to reduce Kimmel is considerably greater than the share of the Republicans who reject that decision (53%).
In other words, the return to Kimmel’s comments on the right is not strong enough to weigh against the recoil to his suspension on the left and in the middle.
When asked which party is ‘a greater threat to free expression’, more Americans say Republicans (40%) than Democrats (28%). (Another 22%say that the parties are ‘about the same’.) Among the independent people, the gap between Republicans (44%) and Democrats (18%) is even greater.
More Americans see Kimmel favorable than unfavorable
After CBS announced in July that it would cancel its long-term late-night program with host Stephen Colbert, Yahoo and Yougov asked a series of similar questions about politics, speech and TV.
But while the cancellation of jacket was not popular – 33% approved; 40% Rejected – Response to the recent Kimmelcontroverse is much more skewed in his favor.
In general, more Americans see Kimmel favorable (46%) than unfavorable (39%). (The current rating of Trump is 43% favorable, 54% unfavorable.) The number of Kimmel is overwhelmingly positive among those who say he is their favorite host (92% favorable, 6% unfavorable). But he also has a positive image among those who call other late-night hosts as their favorites (56% favorable, 31% unfavorable).
Americans who say they don’t watch late-night television, are the only group that gives Kimmel a net negative rating (19% favorable, 58% unfavorable). They also lean or identify them as Republican instead of Democrat with a margin from 58% to 19%.
When Americans were asked in July to select a maximum of three of their favorite talk shows in the late night, Colbert (25%) brought Jimmy Fallon (25%) for the first place, with Kimmel behind at 22%. But now Kimmel (22%) is a jacket (21%) and Fallon (20%) with a narrow margin.
Why the shift? A considerably larger number of Democrats now mentions Kimmel as one of their three favorite hosts in the late night: 44% today versus 35% in July. At the same time, Colbert and Fallon have lost some ground at Democrats. And while fewer Republicans Kimmel still choose as a favorite – 7%, against 13% – it is not enough to compensate for his profit on the other side of the aisle.
Kimmel is generally considered liberal (57%) instead of moderate (14%) or conservative (4%). But more Americans (40%) say that he is “about good” in his approach of politics than saying that he is “too political” (35%). More Americans also continue to prefer (45%) instead of opposing (33%) “hosts from the late night talk shows that get involved in politics by speaking out about political issues.”
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The Yahoo survey was carried out by Yougov with the help of a nationally representative sample of 1,676 American adults interviewed online from September 25 to September 29, 2025. The sample was weighed according to gender, age, race, education, rise of the elections and the current vote and the current status of the voter registration. Demographic road goals come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighed according to the estimated distribution at the time of the elections (31% democratic, 32% Republican). Respondents were selected from Yougov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all American adults. The margin of error is around 3%.
