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Kimmel is back.

Personally, I hope ABC read them the riot act and made it perfectly clear that not airing JKL would be a violation of their affiliation agreement...but that's just me. I'd have preferred a full-throated public apology from Disney/ABC executives (including Iger) to Kimmel, his staff, and viewers, but this is good.

Seeing as the Kirk memorial wasn't shown on the Sinclair affiates after all, I assume Disney gave them a behind-the-scenes talking to and reminder of their affiliate obligations.

He also has a grudge against the NFL. He wanted to be an owner, settled for the Generals in the second class original USFL, then when a deal was made he was not offered to bring the team to the NFL or become an NFL owner.

You are wrong about most stations still able to pre-empt programming whenever they want in their contracts. Network affiliate agreements have changed. There may be a few exceptions, but it's not the norm anymore, especially for a large group of weak underperforming stations like Sinclair. Most Sinclair stations are last place, with horrible quality newscasts. They are not a desirable station group to affiliate with. Even stations way more important than the ones owned by Sinclair and Nexstar who used to get away with airing programming at different times are now forced to air network programming at the correct time when their affiliate agreement is renewed. You are also making a ridiculous comparison. First, the examples you provided are not even true, WSVN rarely pre-empts FOX programming anymore, but pre-empting a rare sporting event once in awhile is not the same as pre-empting 5 hours of programming per week, and you are wrong about WHDH, WHDH never actually pre-empted The Jay Leno Show, they wanted to, but NBC wouldn't let them, so no NBC does not blame WHDH for Jay Leno failing, WHDH aired Jay Leno just like NBC wanted. Then there is the fact that "Local" affiliates didn't object to carrying Jimmy Kimmel Live. The "local" affiliates had nothing to do with the decision. Right wing conglomerates who own the stations made the decision. It was not made at the station level at all. There is nothing normal or justifiable about what Nexstar and Sinclair did. If Disney had a backbone they would pull their affiliations from both groups, but Disney is terrified of upsetting the far right authoritarian government and evil dictator in the white house.

As a concerned viewer, you can, especially if they have a "complaint" line. However, do NOT do it as a news junkie, asking about talent moves and graphics, etc. And IF someone does do that, do NOT claim association with this forum and the greater community.

At the very least, the local stations are going to make sure that corporate starts standing down and letting them make their own programming decisions, both them and Nexstar, and the networks are going to begin to put in a nuclear option clause that they can pull if there's no critical local/national need to pre-empt a show. At least with NYPD Blue in the 90s you had the station GMs (except for the stubborn one at WLOX) humbled once they realized the alternate station airing it was killing whatever 60s sitcom replaced it in the ratings, and the blowback was locally limited. Personally I don't think they cared if Sinclair pre-empted a Friday rerun for something else, but having it revealed as a literal National News Desk infomercial disguised as a tribute was the last straw. The other thing is I don't think an apology is needed from the network since Bob, Dana and Jimmy worked it out like adults. We'll probably get some jibes tomorrow night about the C-suite, but it'll be harmless and most of the venom will be reserved for Nexstar and Sinclair for trying to police the rest of the network (WISN was already in promotional mode about tomorrow night's return today and ready to move on).

The damage has definitely been done. Sinclair is not about to be having any ABC affiliated stations come renewal time. I'm gonna call it now.

That is my question too. They should allow their viewers choice, including self censuring by not watching. Most of them are probably asleep by then anyway.

United Kingdom Today's the day. Even if they don't celebrate it on the air, its still worth mentioning. September 22nd, 1955. Happy 70th birthday to the BBC's biggest competitor...

Gray, Sinclair, Nexstar, etc don't have the money to acquire a major network.

The View FINALLY talking about the Kimmel mess in depth on today’s show

scenario two would be interesting... the possibility of the networks owning an O&O in every market.

That's a great description for what stations like WWOR look like these days.

ABC doesn't care about Celebrity Family Feud, a timeslot filler while they figure the Kimmel situation out. As seen above, a few other stations had already pre-empted it with more local news without consequence.

At last check, the special that was going to air Friday night only has ~27,000 views on YouTube. No wonder Sinclair reversed course at the last minute.

Christ. Why does everyone just so happen to have a merger deal going on now??? Is the timing coincidence, or were some companies waiting for a conservative administration hoping they'd get laxed monopoly policies?

lets face it. He’ll try to interfere even if Disney fires Kimmel. Trump is a bully who likes to bully just because he can. You can be his biggest ass kisser and he’ll still treat you like shit

After yesterday’s developments, I think ABC brings back Kimmel, but he hangs it up and this season ends up being his last. He’s been talking about retirement, and this is a good exit point for him.

The ONLY thing that makes this a business decision for these companies is the fact that the United States now has a corrupt authoritarian government. Nobody is reporting that advertisers were planning to pull their advertising. It's not a good business decision for Nexstar and Sinclair to anger ABC when their stations need ABC A LOT more than ABC needs them. It makes sense when you want to buy more stations than allowed and need the corrupt FCC to change the rules for you. It's not a good business decision for ABC to cancel a highly rated successful show that is impossible to replace. Jimmy Kimmel Live airing on ABC excluding Sinclair & Nexstar stations will rate higher and get more ad revenue than anything that replaces Jimmy Kimmel Live with 100% ABC network coverage. Disney is willing to ruin ABC's late night lineup and destroy the ABC brand because the alternative of the U.S. government coming after Disney's more profitable assets is a bigger risk. It also makes business sense for a broadcaster in Russia to remove a highly rated extremely popular profitable show that upsets the Russian government. Disney does business in many countries with evil authoritarian governments, and they don't broadcast shows that are critical of those Governments either, they have simply added America to the list of countries they operate where being critical of the government is not accepted.

Sinclair's ABC stations didn't air the Charlie Kirk tribute tonight. Instead they stuck w/ ABC programming (Celebrity Family Feud reruns) and put the tribute on their youtube page. https://x.com/WeAreSinclair/status/1969241140219039979

Well, it looks like the same people who own a majority stake in Cox Media Group (WSB, WFTV, WSOC, WPXI, WHIO, etc.) also want to own a majority stake in Atletico Madrid. https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/atletico-de-madrid-owners-advanced-talks-sell-majority-stake-apollo-sources-say-2025-09-19/

Here's the thing that bothers me about this story. I frankly do not think that Jimmy Kimmel should be fired (or at least, as yet, suspended) from ABC. For those who claim a First Amendment violation occurred in this case, that applies in the context of government interference. Which would then beg the question of whether the FCC directly or indirectly caused Jimmy Kimmel to be suspended. As noted in the attached video clip from YouTube, a ABC reporter (in a news report on Good Morning America) implied that it was the decision of Brendan Carr to suspend Jimmy Kimmel. FCC chairman Brendan Carr went on podcaster Dana Loesch's program and unequivocally denied that claim not once but twice when the question was put to him. Link to both of the aforementioned: here. The strongest case that could be made at this point is not FCC interference but rather Nexstar and Sinclair deciding to violate their contracts. I do not represent what those contracts say specifically and whether they can exercise a right to pre-empt. I've heard antidotally that Nexstar and Sinclair stations were having complaints levied toward them by viewers after his comments. At the end of the day, Nexstar and Sinclair (like any private broadcasting business) are largely modeled and funded on selling advertisements and if those people are complaining/threatening to pull their ad revenue, then you take the course of action that is necessary. I won't link it but it is being widely reported (particularly by CNN) that Jimmy Kimmel was planning to "double down" on his statements instead of apologizing. Whether or not an apology is necessary is besides the point as that is subjective and generally each political camp will respond different to that. But the fact is that ABC was not okay with him "doubling down" and, apparently, that was the final catalyst for ABC to sideline Kimmel. I don't deny that Sinclair skewing right of center and Nexstar's proposed merger with Tegna may have been contributing factors in each of them deciding to pre-empt (notably they decided that before ABC itself sidelined Kimmel). I just don't know as to what of those, if any, factored in. But I can say with confidence is that this ultimately came down to a business decision by ABC due to significant headwinds by their broadcasting partners (Nexstar and Sinclair) if they did not.

And neither of those cancellations came from pressure from the government.

Sinclair is secondary here. The issue is the FCC threats. Proverbially “growing a backbone” over Sinclair et al simply further increases the likelihood of the US government putting its full weight behind those threats.

This is what I have been coming back to as I think about the situation (as I desperately try to not think about it, and have tried to stay away). Johnny, Letterman, and Leno all took their political jabs when the news of the day called for it, but the timing and the joke had to be right, and both sides were fair game for a punchline as warranted. Johnny Carson also did warn about the dangers of taking political stances in the position of a late night host. As I have reflected, the constant politics is why I've turned off late night shows. When Leno returned to the airwaves post 9/11, he equated The Tonight Show to a cookie and a glass of lemonade for a firefighter working a recovery shift in New York City- a break from all that is dark, dour, and negative around us. We all need a break from the constant news cycle and cesspool that has become the Facebook comments section. Kimmel used to do YouTube challenges that breathed new life into funny home videos, and Fallon with his sketch comedy- all were a nice end of the day break for many of us. For the record, I do not think what Kimmel said warranted the suspension- He has said worse. However, he also celebrated the cancellation of Roseanne Barr and Tucker Carlson's shows for opinions they have spewed that were deemed offensive to their detractors. I am not here to suggest what one celebrity has said is better or worse than the other- the common denominator with each is that what was said upset a faction of the public general and lead to that celebrity being sanctioned by their respective employer. The root of the issue in this thread is the quid-pro-quo at the FCC- not Kimmel, not people being upset over comments. If we really cancelled hosts for tasteless jokes, Letterman would have gotten canned for his remarks about Sarah Palin's daughter in 2009. But alas- he conceded it was a poor joke, offered an apology, and life seemed to move on. This time, however, you have the issue of Mr. Carr that has been lamented to exhaustion on this board and a station group that wants approval to continue to consume more competitors. There is your issue. At the end of the day- Kimmel, and all hosts have the ability to say what they want, and it is the viewer's choice whether or not to watch- The remote is a powerful voting tool and there's plenty of tv to watch out there. But also, as viewership declines across the genre leading to lower advertising revenue, perhaps accompanying the Backstreet Boys with Fisher Price instruments or coercing viewers to pull pranks on their family might not be that bad of an idea. Laugh emoji away...

WRIC makes some level of sense - statewide elections in just over 6 weeks, so they can use news as filler between political spots and charge news rates.

Update: KCTV's tower is relit once more. It was just after 9 pm when it was relit. It even brought back its 1999-2002 logo on its time/temp bug with the current logo to mark the occasion. https://www.kctv5.com/2025/09/18/history-rekindled-iconic-kctv5-tower-once-again-shine-over-kansas-city/

This is never going to happen. The only ones who should be giving an apology is Disney, ABC, Nexstar, and Sinclair. Jimmy Kimmel Live's ratings surpassed NBC's The Tonight Show because he focused on politics. It might be annoying to MAGA, but MAGA has lots of other things to watch. The country is never going to unify, the right has gone way too extreme for that to ever happen.

Of course, because there is no way to discuss this without making Disney and ABC look like pro-MAGA censors that only care about those on the far right. In the little coverage ABC News has given the story, they act like the FCC gave them no choice. While the FCC chairperson did make a threat towards ABC, no official action was taken. I think the U.S. government is no different than the government of Russia as they have proven rules and laws don't matter to them, but in this case they never actually took action against ABC, if ABC is going to try and blame the FCC for this, they should have let the process play out and see what the FCC actually ended up doing, self censoring yourself before the authoritarian government actually gets a chance to do anything just shows how weak and spineless Disney and ABC are. It also says to viewers that they shouldn't trust anything they see on ABC News because the network has flat out admitted that they are terrified of upsetting the far right authoritarian government. CBS News proved you can't trust anything they broadcast by hiring a far right MAGA ombudsman to police coverage and ABC isn't even willing to keep an entertainment comedy show on the air, and the ABC News program where they discuss :hot topics" isn't allowed to talk about it. As I said before. U.S. media is now no different than media in China or Russia. Australia's ABC News asks tough questions to Trump, because Australia still has credible media outlets, America's ABC News "journalists" know that if they ask any questions that upset Trump, Disney will fire them.

local affiliates have been objecting to and refusing to air programming from the networks for as long as that relationship has existed. Many, at least the smart ones, have it written out in their contracts. WSVN would nuke FOX programming if it scraped into the newscast schedule, and still unilaterally decides to throw any sport that isn't an NFL game into whatever timeslot they can find, National Hot Rod Association being one of the more recent ones. And then there's WHDH, which to this day NBC blames for Jay Leno at 10pm failing, and one of the primary reasons NBC did what it did in Boston

no. The shooter is an obvious leftist. You have to be blind, deaf, dumb and a liar to claim otherwise. We can all read that savage's text and discord messages. Even me, English as third language and having failed it at 8th grade in eastern europe, can read and understand also "Charlie Kirk is a Nazi" totally something something on the right would say about Kirk which part of lying on TV while holding an FCC license was hard for you to comprehend? I thought we were supposed to battle misinformation and disable those people's social media and everything else

That right there may be the best post of the thread.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/abc-preempts-jimmy-kimmel-live/story?id=125690074 It's on the GMA website. I guess they want to be very delicate with this story only because they are the face of it. So they don't want it easily accessible. Nonetheless, the decision to pull the plug on Jimmy Kimmel for that particular reason was egregious to me, but it's not shocking that all the shows he's done leading up to today couldn't mean that he was not under the radar already. What he said about the shooter, in my opinoin was very wreckless on his part. Especially since the situation has just occurred, and people are still mourning. ABC is playing it safe, especially since they have been under the radar lately with the administration already given what has happened. They just settled a defamation suit, so the least they need now is another lawsuit. Still, I'm willing to bet that it probably wasn't that particular statement alone on Monday night. He was probably in hot water the entire time, and they (the FCC, nextstar and etc) used this moment to take action and set a precedent for everyone else. The media does have a role to play in all of this words can be damaging. Lately, Jimmy Kimmel's shows have been mostly bashing the administration and their antics, while he is free to say what he wants to say, but when you "poke the bear" enough, the bear will eventually attack back, and it seems like this is what is playing out. Yes, while we are in a country that promotes free speech, free speech is not necessarily a protected right. There are consequences for it. But, I do hope that the show returns, maybe some sort of apology or compromise can be done to unify the sides together. Maybe Kimmel could invite Trump on his show lol. Late night, talk shows need not be so heavily focused on the government and politics; Do some light commentary and a little political satire, but he kept going on and on all the time, it's a bit annoying find some other things to poke fun at, in my opinion.

I am.

Make no mistake: this isn’t just the cancellation of a late-night talk show. This is a neon-lit symptom of America’s degenerative attention span, corporate cowardice, and our collective descent into curated stupidity. And don’t you dare try to convince me it was just about ratings. This is what happens when a culture trades character for content, when it silences the jesters because the kings got tired of being mocked. It’s what happens when we stop laughing at power and start laughing with it. ABC didn’t cancel Jimmy Kimmel. America did. And it should be ashamed.

But they are. This has been building for a long, long time. And those who saw it coming were dismissed as overreacting. It’s not just one party controlling every aspect of the government, it’s one philosophy. The governing party has largely been purged of any dissenting voices. Where once there was a diversity of views on many topics, all you have now is a couple of outliers on one or two issues who ultimately make no meaningful difference. It’s performative at most.

In that case, I've been on sites like primetime and daytime tv boards, where there are occasional (but not as persistent) rude comments and those are very quickly shut down or called out.

Yet at this moment there’s no word that Kimmel’s Millionaire show is scrapped…indicating that there’s still a door open?

I smell dictatorship… Trump really is coming for the broadcast networks ABC could get really hurt from this and they have no spine so there letting this happen to them.

I said this on the Discord, and got about the same amount of crickets as your posting.

KSAT San Antonio will NOT follow ABC's lead. Instead, the weeknight Nightbeat at 10:00 goes back to an hour for the first time since 2019. https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1229793872520385&id=100064693507876

I see Kimmel being offended by this move and quitting, and doing his own thing on maybe HBO or streaming.

Temporarily air reruns as an immediate stopgap? Good Night America? (No, I’m not serious.) Shark Tank After Dark?

Brendan Carr and all of his cronies are idiots because... ABC AND THE OTHER NETWORKS DO NOT HAVE FCC LICENSES!!! Only the stations themselves are licensed and liable for their operation. And given the sway the networks have over their affiliates, that discretion is very limited. All it takes is an oligarch like Perry Sook to make a fuss and then the network relents...

Fascism isn’t coming. It’s here. Never mind the irony that the person being mourned as a victim of an absolutely heinous crime is memorialized as being a champion of free speech. Kimmel’s comments apparently don’t count.

It's just insane what has happened to America's media companies. They are all a disgrace. I used to worry about the decline and cutbacks at traditional media because there is so much fake news online, but CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Nexstar, etc. have all decided they want to appease the far right and the far right only. They are all terrified of the far right dictator in the white house and the FCC and worried about him harming their other assets. Our media companies are as credible as the media companies in China and Russia. Jimmy Kimmel doesn't need his ABC show. He talks about leaving all the time.

Nightline can move back to 11:35

And now, per Deadline, the network has pulled Kimmel off the air "indefinitely" after Nexstar's move. The Hollywood Reporter advances the Deadline story a bit by reporting that ABC "had also heard from at least one other station group about the show." If true, that would undoubtedly make it more challenging to keep him on the air from purely a clearance perspective. Nexstar, by itself, isn't an ABC powerhouse in large markets, but if one of the other groups, Scripps, Hearst, or even Sinclair, were to be the one calling, then your clearance drops to a level where you can't sell advertising. That is to say nothing of the publicity around this situation, which would make advertisers run for the hills. https://deadline.com/2025/09/jimmy-kimmel-live-off-abc-charlie-kirk-comments-1236547397/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/abc-affiliate-nexstar-suspends-jimmy-kimmel-live-charlie-kirk-1236374150/

must be a good chunk of change needed to get 700 Club off the schedule. Be crazy if they also can't do it period. WGVU has had operting loses even in 2023 with federal funding, they'll have to beat that, then donor attrition, along with 9.4% yearly rise in "administrative expenses"