After spending most of his time at the Disney upfronts mocking his parent company’s competition, ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel ended his monologue with a somber plea to the advertising community.
“I know it’s not part of our multi-platform, but support ’60 Minutes.’ They deserve it. You have the power because you have the money. Support journalism. It’s important, and it doesn’t work without you,” Kimmel said on Tuesday.
Typically, the upfronts are a time when each of the major media companies shows off their wares and unapologetically asks advertisers for money. Someone reaching across the broadcast aisle, so to speak, isn’t just unusual. It’s the exact opposite of what’s expected from these presentations. Kimmel’s ask that advertisers “support ’60 Minutes’” was in his prepared script for Tuesday and was not ad-libbed, TheWrap can confirm.
The CBS staple is currently in the middle of a nasty legal battle with President Donald Trump. In December of 2024, Trump filed a $20 billion lawsuit against “60 Minutes,” claiming that the network deceptively edited an interview with Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. “60 Minutes” has maintained that it did not edit the interview any more than the series typically edits its interviews. The series also handed over an unedited transcript of the interview to the Federal Communications Commission. This lawsuit is especially complicated as it happened in the middle of Paramount and Skydance’s planned $8 billion merger, a deal that requires FCC approval. Both parties are currently in the midst of mediation.
The rest of Kimmel’s upfronts presentation was typical late night banter. Kimmel started off his segment by trying to sell off the rights to name his grandchild. The bit, which was recorded a week ago, was similar to several jokes Seth Meyers made during his NBCUniversal presentation. Yes, Kimmel brought up the similarities and said that if Meyers has a problem with it, “take it up with motherf–king Dre.” Check out the video of the bit below:
The rest of Kimmel’s monologue was as biting and inside-baseball as you would expect from any upfronts presentation. Kimmel mocked NBC’s age, saying that once the network hits its 100th birthday next year it’s “finally old enough to watch CBS.” The ABC host also touted that across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, Disney has 164 million active users per month on its ad-supported platforms, noting that’s “more than twice the number Netflix has.”
“I don’t have a joke for that. I just want you know we finally beat those motherf–kers at something,” Kimmel said.
The late night host also joked about CBS’s top comedy being called “Ghosts,” “which is also what most of their viewers will be soon,” and Fox developing “Memory of a Killer,” a show about a hit man with Alzheimer’s.
“That is a dumb idea, but at least CBS and Fox are making shows. ABC, we ordered one new show, and it’s a spinoff of an old show, which really begs the question, what are we doing here? We risked our lives flying into Newark for this,” Kimmel said. “If you went to a restaurant, and the waiter said, ‘Our special tonight is last year’s fish,’ would you eat it? No, you would not. Our fish is not fresh.
“But you know what? We do have Season grandmother-f–king 2 of ‘The Golden Bachelor,’” Kimmel said. “Say what you will about ABC, we are still the only network where you can see Pop-Pop get a squeezer in a hot tub.”
