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After an unusual year in his late-night tenure, Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> is officially sticking around for a little while longer. <\/p>\n The late-night host signed a one-year contract extension with ABC and \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d will continue through May 2027. Kimmel\u2019s previous contract was set to end in May 2026, at the end of the 2025-2026 television season. <\/p>\n The extension, first reported by Bloomberg<\/a>, comes a few months after the network and its parent company, Walt Disney Co., suspended Kimmel<\/a> following sharp backlash over comments he made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk\u2019s death. Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of ABC affiliates, said they would not air the series after Kimmel\u2019s comments hours before the indefinite suspension was announced. <\/p>\n Kimmel returned to the air after a nearly weeklong suspension, delivering an emotional monologue in which he ardently defended free speech. He did not explicitly apologize for his comments, which Sinclair said was a condition that had to be met before it would air the show again, but both Nexstar and Sinclair resumed airing the show shortly after Kimmel returned.<\/p>\n During his brief time off the air, Kimmel found himself at the center of a fiery culture war. Talk show hosts<\/a>, actors, comedians, writers<\/a> and even the former head of Disney<\/a> condemned ABC\u2019s decision to pause production, but a wave of critics celebrated Kimmel\u2019s suspension, including President Trump and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who had publicly urged ABC to act on Kimmel\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n The late-night landscape<\/a> has been the subject of much discourse about free speech since CBS announced in July that it would not be renewing<\/a> the storied network franchise \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert.\u201d The decision, the company said, was due to financial reasons and not \u2014 as many have speculated \u2014 because of Colbert\u2019s criticism of a settlement between the Trump administration and Paramount, the parent company of CBS, over a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.<\/p>\n