ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is reportedly reducing the number of musical guest performances it features on the show this year, per multiple outlets.
The news was first shared by The Hollywood Reporter on Monday, which reported that the show looked to cut down to just two performances a week.
Deadline reported that the number of performances would go down to “around two,” but it was “not a hard number,” as episodes haven’t always featured musical guests. Variety indicated that the number was “more likely to vary.”
The reason for the reduction is unclear. Variety speculated that “it seems likely that budget considerations played a role.”
celebrity.land has reached out to representatives for ABC and “Live!” for comment.
It appears the change has yet to take place as Kimmel’s show is scheduled to feature three performances this week: one by folk artist Molly Tuttle, another by Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami (HUNTR/X from “KPop Demon Hunters”) and Debbie Gibson is set to sit in with the house band, The Cletones.
The decision at “Live!” would leave fellow host Jimmy Fallon with the only late-night program that regularly books musical performances four times a week, with nights featuring guest comedy acts as exceptions.
Back in 2024, “Late Night With Seth Meyers” dropped its house band, led by “SNL” alum Fred Armisen, due to budget cuts and the show’s music department went with them. Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” which is set to end in May, “typically hosts one to two musical guests,” LateNighter noted.
The news follows Kimmel’s win in the best talk show category at the Critics’ Choice Awards on Sunday.
There’s been a “downward spiral” in the amount of late-night musical bookings since peaking at over 800 performances between 2011 and 2013, according to an analysis by Consequence of Sound last year.
There were close to 200 bookings in 2023, per CoS.
Mac Burrus, who books performances on Kimmel’s show along with Jim Pitt, told the outlet that music has been a priority at the program “from day one.”
At the time, Pitt said the two felt “very fortunate” that Kimmel was “such a supporter in the music space.”
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