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Jimmy Kimmel has been known to bite the hand that feeds him in his annual monologues for the ABC upfronts, and Deadline reports that the late-night host pulled no punches when he appeared before advertisers for this year’s virtual upfronts.
“At this point, let’s call ABC what it really is, Disney-,” Kimmel joked, referencing the beating that network television has been taking due to increased competition from streaming.
“Isn’t there something to be said for dying with dignity?” he quipped. “Somehow when everyone’s stuck in their houses with nothing to do but watch TV for the past 14 months, and we still managed to lose ratings.”
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He then made his pitch to advertisers. “Give us your money, we’re Disney, we’re going to get it one way or the other,” he said. “Give us your money or we’ll kill Baby Yoda.”
Kimmel offered a tribute (of sorts) to Disney chairman Bob Iger. “I just want to say, I don’t know if he is ever really leaving, but if he does, and I hope he doesn’t, but if he does, on behalf of all of us at Disney, I want to say thank you to Bob Iger for everything you’ve done for me, for us,” he continued. “Also, why the f*ck was Mulan 30 dollars?”
He continued to hammer away at ABC’s dwindling ratings. “Things are so desperate, we’ve had to resort to doing the right thing: inclusion,” Kimmel added. “We want ABC, Disney, FX, Hulu, Freeform, ESPN and Nat Geo to be a safe space where anyone, no matter what their racial or ethnic background, their gender or sexual orientation …we want our platforms to be a place where everyone can bring their stories to die.”
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Kimmel also took a shot at Canada’s favourite sport.
“And what do you do when you want to bring more people of colour under the tent? You sign a long-term deal with the NHL — ‘White People On Ice!’ After 17 years, the NHL is back on ABC and ESPN. At long last, America’s fourth-favourite sport returns to its fifth-favourite network,” he joked.
“We’re a dying breed,” Kimmel said of advertising-supported network television. “The good news is we’re dying together. In fact, that’s our theme for the next upfront: Dying Together.”