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God I hope someone leaks that cease and desist letter from Bob Iger and Mickey Mouse's legal team to Hunt Valley that caused this change of heart. If there's one media/entertainment company legal team I never want to see on the other side a courtroom, it is Disney's.

Almost identical statements? This is extremely dangerous to our democracy. /s

Sinclair is going to tell it their way, when in reality, ABC was likely getting ready to throw down the hammer this weekend and Sinclair folded like a deck chair on the Titanic.

Perry put himself in a lose-lose situation now. Bring back Kimmel, no Tegna merger. Keep the ban going, no more ABC affiliations.

Well, consider the Tegna merger DOA, especially if Carr has his way with Nexstar.

If anything this whole affair has proven that Nexstar doesn't have the public's interest at heart and that the Tegna merger should be toast.

Perry Sook attached a letter to employees when the press release was sent internally too. He said they had "constructive" discussions with ABC/Disney. He also said Nexstar "regrets" the earful stations had to endure (especially ABC affiliates) over some stations receiving threats and had hostile conversations with the public. It is no coincidence that both companies decided, within a couple hours of each other, to bring Kimmel back. Sinclair even had the audacity to say ABC didn't accept their so-called "proposal" (read: demands) to "strengthen accountability, viewer feedback, and community dialogue, including a network-wide independent ombudsman.” I wouldn't be surprise if Iger told them to pound sand and how dare they make demands on how a totally different company operates. I can absolutely believe that either: A) ABC threatened to strip affiliations and clearly wasn't bluffing B) ABC threatened to not give them SEC football (Georgia-Alabama is tomorrow, and both have a huge southern presence), Monday Night Football, or ABC News programming removing any reason at all to watch them or C) both At the end of an AP story: That would have been a disastrous headache for everyone and even NexClair realized they couldn't handle it.

If ABC wanted KPLR, they would have had it at this point; keeping KPLR was clearly a priority for Koplar in 1994, Tribune in 2012 and probably Nexstar now

In St. Louis, you would have thought ABC would have kicked KDNL and Sinclair aside. Not sure why they put up with a zombie operation.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nexstar Media Group joined Sinclair Broadcast Group in bringing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” back to its local TV stations on Friday, restoring the late-night talk show to the full slate of ABC affiliates across the U.S.

I'm guessing ABC made a legit threat and I believe that Sinclair had no choice but to give in. If Sinclair continued than not only would ABC strip them of their affiliations but they wouldn't be able to get new ABC affiliations. What had been adverted would of been WPLG on steroids.

I figured the Mouse was going to get tired of the antics. Cue the spin on The National Desk this evening.

Sinclair has ended their embargo.

This is Studio 47. Mornings is moving to 57 (the former home of CBS News 24/7). They even showed a preview of the new studio on today's broadcast.

WESH WPTZ WLWT KMBC KCRA

Just saw that both press releases from Sinclair and Nexstar included an almost identical line that "our decision to preempt the program was independent of any government interaction and influence. That fact both had similar statements make one think 1- it was written for them and 2- its confirmation of the opposite.

Honestly I wish CBS kept the old studio 57 set from the CBS This Morning era and just enhanced that. I never quite understood why they felt the need to overhaul that. This design isn't bad though. Not sure how I feel about the "semi-virtual" look as the backdrop.

I was mistaken. This looks on par with Today's and GMA's sets.

Agreed that the voice overs are lackluster for a lot of them, and the music bed (like what KMBC used) doesn't help.

The updated graphics look okay. Some of the v/o reads in these opens feel so cold and robotic though...

KMBC has some issues with their ticker overlapping as well, but agreed! Good rollout!

Graphics are decent - overall it's a bit better than my initial impressions when we first saw this iteration of the graphics start to roll out. Hopefully the latest Strive music updates will grow on me, but I far prefer the original 2012 cuts and especially the 2017 update cuts.

I really hope Nexstar and Sinclair's shareholders are paying attention, because they probably have a case, too.

KOAT also launched their new graphics.

WISN has launched D25.

Meanwhile, there are people out there on social media who mean well but may be slightly confused.... So, we should punish Disney/ABC for Sinclair and Nexstar not honoring their affiliation agreements? (Also, Too-Far Carr is, last I checked, not a Disney employee.) Who wants to tell her?

Again, WHAT is it exactly that Nexstar wants? What assurances? That Kimmel won't ever make a joke about a conservative ever again? I'm sure the affiliates are pissed too that they're being forced to stick around for an extra half-hour of news. I wouldn't be surprised if Nexstar is trying to see if news rates better in place of Kimmel and wants more time to find out.

This is going to get ooglay.

I think what’s likely to happen is ABC moves to KIRO once CBS inevitably moves to KSTW.