ABC has announced that come January, they're flipping the time slots of Jimmy Kimmel Live! (a show which, by the way, has not been live since its first few weeks) and Nightline. That will put Kimmel on head-to-head with Leno and Letterman.
I must admit that I haven't watched Kimmel's show in several years. When I did, I didn't like it…and the thing was that I didn't like him. It wasn't the writing or the guests or the set or anything else about it. I just didn't want to spend time with him. I liked Kimmel with Ben Stein and for the most part on The Man Show but I felt we were seeing an example of The Peter Principle: A guy who'd been moved up the ladder until they found something he wasn't good at. That may be unfair to say having not watched lately so I'll give him another try one of these days.
My instant reaction though is that this will not grow the late night audience. That will only come by putting on something different, something that wasn't there before. All they'll do with this move is to carve pretty much the same audience into smaller pieces.