• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Viewership of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in his return show on Tuesday rocketed up three-and-a-half times over the show’s recent average to 6.26 million average minute viewers, according to Nielsen.

These results came even as two major TV station groups -- Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Inc. -- pre-empted the show for their collective 70 ABC affiliates' TV stations. Those stations amount to 23% of U.S. TV households.

Nielsen's results did not include streaming, according to the ABC Television Network.

Before Kimmel’s last Monday show a week ago -- when he commented about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk -- the show was averaging 1.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

Views of Kimmel’s return show on YouTube and social-media platforms soared to 26 million, according to ABC. On YouTube’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” site itself, the monologue got 15.7 million views as of late Wednesday.

Previously, his highest YouTube result was in 2017, when Kimmel talked about the birth of his son and how the family was dealing with his son's heart disease, drawing 14 million views.

On Wednesday, September 24 -- the day after Kimmel’s return -- Nexstar Media Group said in a statement: “Nexstar is continuing to evaluate the status of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on our ABC-affiliated local television stations, and the show will be preempted while we do so. We are engaged in productive discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve.”