The New York Times today reports: “ABC Said To Consider ‘Kimmel’ in ‘Nightline’ Slot,” (that is, moving comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, which currently airs at 12:05am, to 11:35pm ). This, according to unnamed in-the-know people who “requested anonymity because the network was withholding all the details of the conversations.”

An unsentimental assessment from James Poniewozick at Time’s Tuned In blog:

If ABC is betraying journalism by considering getting rid of a late-night news show that it’s aired for 30 years, then CBS and NBC are utter traitors to civilization since they never had late-night news shows in the first place. So let’s string them up first.


The reason moving Kimmel is likely a bad idea is simpler: he does well where he is now, and so does Nightline. In an already oversaturated late-night-host market, Nightline is effective counterprogramming.