In late September 2025, after the Disney-owned ABC network announced it was suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", a rumor began to spread that The Walt Disney Co.'s market capitalization (its stock price multiplied by the number of outstanding shares) had dropped by nearly $4 billion.
For example, a post on Reddit said Disney had lost $3.87 billion, presumably in market capitalization, "overnight" (archived):
This post had been upvoted 58,000 times and had received 3,300 comments as of this writing. The same claim appeared elsewhere on Reddit as well as on Instagram.
ABC announced its decision regarding Kimmel's show on Sept. 17, 2025, after the end of trading hours at the New York Stock Exchange. The first reports appeared at 6:45 pm in New York, 30 minutes after a news release from Nexstar Media Group, which said its ABC affiliates would "preempt" Kimmel's show starting that evening following comments from Kimmel it found controversial regarding the death of Turning Point USA co-founder and CEO Charlie Kirk. (On Sept. 22, ABC announced it was reinstating the show the following day, PBS reported.)
That day, Disney's stock price closed at $116.10, after reaching a high of $116.66. The next morning, it opened at $115.33. This represented a drop of 0.66%.
As of Aug. 6, 2025, when Disney reported earnings for its third fiscal quarter, the company had 1.799 billion basic shares outstanding. Multiplying this number by the stock price results in the company's market capitalization. For example, at closing Sept. 17, the company's market capitalization was approximately $208.9 billion. The next morning at opening, it was $207.5 billion. Overnight, the company lost $1.4 billion, not the $3.87 claimed in some social media posts.
However, by the end of the week on Sept. 19, with its stock price at $113.76, Disney's market capitalization had fallen by $4.2 billion, or 2.5%, to $204.7 billion. The share price closed at $112.56 on Sept. 22, bringing Disney's market capitalization to $202.5 billion — down $6.4 billion, or 3.0%, from the start of trading Sept. 18.
Some financial publications, including Yahoo! Finance, said this fall was linked to the concern of some investors who were selling the stock following reports that customers angry about the network's decision to suspend Kimmel's show were canceling their subscriptions to Disney's streaming platforms. In addition, celebrities, including actor Mark Ruffalo (archived), warned publicly that the backlash might get worse if ABC canceled Kimmel's show altogether.
While Disney's share price followed a downward trend on the news that Kimmel's show was suspended, financial analysts were generally optimistic about the company, as data compiled by Yahoo! Finance and CNN revealed.