Local TV Giants Boycott Jimmy Kimmel's Return to Late Night

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/business/media/jimmy-kimmel-nexstar-
sinclair-boycott.html

Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show is returning to ABC on Tuesday night after 
a tense standoff from remarks he made about the Trump administration’s 
response to the killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. But 
about a quarter of the ABC stations in the United States won’t be airing 
it.

Nexstar, a major owner of local ABC stations, said on Tuesday morning that 
it would pre-empt Mr. Kimmel’s show indefinitely. Sinclair, another owner 
of local affiliates, said the same on Monday evening, hours after Disney 
announced “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return, saying it would replace the 
show with news programming, pending further “discussions with ABC.”

Those decisions set up a high-stakes impasse between Disney and the TV 
station groups that transmit its shows to millions of households across 
the United States. The stations owned by Nexstar and Sinclair represent a 
meaningful source of ad revenue for Mr. Kimmel’s show. But pre-empting it 
indefinitely could lead to backlash for both Sinclair and Nexstar, 
especially from viewers who enjoy “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“Losing large portions of the country’s viewers undermines the network’s 
business model,” said Andrew Schwartzman, a senior counselor at the Benton 
Institute for Broadband & Society, a policy nonprofit. “But broadcast 
viewers are creatures of habit; Jimmy Kimmel is very popular, and 
affiliates are taking a big risk in taking him away at a time when viewers 
can migrate to YouTube.”

Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The firestorm began after Mr. Kimmel said on his show last week that “the 
MAGA gang” was “desperately trying” to characterize the suspect in Mr. 
Kirk’s killing, Tyler Robinson, as “anything other than one of them.” It 
escalated when Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications 
Commission, said during an interview that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part 
of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people,” adding that the 
agency was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”

The fallout from Mr. Kimmel’s remarks engulfed the normally sleepy world 
of TV affiliates in a thorny debate over the First Amendment. The National 
Association of Broadcasters, a trade association representing TV groups, 
released a conciliatory statement this week that simultaneously defended 
the editorial freedom of TV stations while pushing back against “veiled 
threats” of government interference.


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November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.