Jimmy Kimmel Live! is reportedly set to make a major change amid a shifting late-night television landscape.
The ABC talk show, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will cut back musical performances to twice a week, said The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, January 6.
The outlet reported that the show’s music producer, Jim Pitt, informed industry partners of the news in recent weeks, though no reason was given for the move.
The show is not expected to reduce in length, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Us Weekly has reached out to Kimmel’s representatives for comment.
Late-night TV has seen major changes in recent years, with NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers dropping its house band led by Fred Armisen in 2024 and CBS outright canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last year.
Kimmel’s own show has seen its fair share of challenges, also, including a temporary suspension in September 2025 over comments the comedian made in the wake of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting that same month.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said on his show after Kirk’s shooting, prompting right-wing criticism.
Amid mounting pressure from members of President Donald Trump’s administration and television station owners for the show to be pulled off-air or canceled, ABC suspended the show for six nights. At the time, local affiliate networks owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group refused to air the program.
Upon returning to his late-night slot days later, Kimmel said, “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”
On Sunday, January 4, Kimmel, 58, won Best Talk Show at the 2026 Critics Choice Awards and reflected on his show’s rocky period in the fall.
“It was almost a near-death experience for me,” he told reporters in the winners’ room after his victory. “Of course, not literally, but I did feel a little bit like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn watching their own funeral, when all this stuff happened.”
“To be here and to see that people reacted to it in not just a positive way, but in almost a desperate way, we’re like, ‘Oh boy, when they come after the comedians, this is when we draw the line,’” he added. “We’re very grateful that they drew the line at us.”
Kimmel and his talk show were also rocked in November 2025 by the death of Cleto Escobedo III, the leader of the show’s house band and the comedian’s childhood friend. Kimmel paid tribute to Escobedo in his opening monologue on the immediate episode after he died, before taking a brief hiatus from the show.
Kimmel said on the November 11 episode that he’s “had to do some hard monologues” across two decades of hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!, “but this one’s the hardest, because late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special who was much too young to go.”
“It’s just not fair,” Kimmel said through tears. “He was the nicest, most humble, kind and always funny person.”
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