Nexstar ABC Stations Dropping Kimmel

[AKA 70]

Jimmy Kimmel’s Lifelong Friend and Jimmy Kimmel Live! Band Leader Cleto Escobedo Dies at 59: 'We Are Heartbroken'

[TheRolyPoly 3509]

12 hours ago, AKA said:

Jimmy Kimmel’s Lifelong Friend and Jimmy Kimmel Live! Band Leader Cleto Escobedo Dies at 59: 'We Are Heartbroken'

 

He actually did a show last night and here's the monologue as a tribute:

 

 

[Georgie56 3661]

awshitherewegoagain.gif

 

UPDATE: It just got real.

 

 

 

Edited April 28 by Georgie56

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

It would be nice if our current FCC would actually work "in the public interest"....

 

But as we can see that's clearly not the case.

[Reweivvt88 173]

What's so crazy to me is this is happening not because ABC News is doing good journalism and covering trump accurately, ABC News sanewashes, justifies, and downplays everything trump does just like the rest of U.S. television news media, it's because of an entertainment late night talk show. Disney has destroyed the credibility of ABC News and made it look no different than state TV in other authoritarian countries yet they are still a target because they didn't cancel their late night talk show like CBS did. The FCC is signaling that you can turn your entire news organization into pro U.S. government propaganda and still be a target if you air any entertainment programming that is critical of the evil fascist U.S. government.

 

For the U.S. news media, it's fine for trump to order the killing of innocent people, fine for him to order the U.S. "law enforcement" to grab innocent people off the street and send them to torture camps with no due process, fine to put thousands of innocent children who have committed no crime themselves in awful prisons because their parents brought them to the country illegally. Fine for him to threaten to kill a "whole civilisation" , But his life is so precious that any joke about his life ending is just so awful and when someone tries to take his life it's not okay for the news media to be "neutral" like it pretends to be for everything else, When Jeffrey Epstein  died the U.S. news media was not saying his death was tragic, but any attempt to take trumps life is beyond horrible and when he finally dies the U.S. news media will act like his death is a devastating somber event. If nobody deserves to be shot and killed no matter what, where was the outrage when secret service shot and killed the first person who tried to shoot trump? The U.S. government shoots and kills people all the time when there are non-lethal alternatives and it's no big deal. Death is only tragic to the U.S. news media when it's evil far right wing Americans. Just making a joke about the death of a right wing president who has ordered the murder of thousands of people is enough for massive outrage and the FCC coming after you. 

[nathannah 2792]

The thing that gets me is this joke about 'old man about to die with a young wife' has been around for decades. It's the last half of Anna Nicole Smith's life. We pretty much can count like clockwork when Rupert Murdoch has had enough of last decade's wife and wants a new one. Leonardo DiCaprio has an entire legend about how he moves on the moment his girlfriend turns 25! I'm more offended by 'fat man/thin wife' sitcoms much more than I ever will be 'lol they're marrying a hot young lady before they die'.

 

It wasn't even that vicious of a joke, it was just the most benign 'we're waiting for the funeral' jab that's been made since that man moved from Marla Maples to Melania. The biggest station revocation came only because KDND literally killed someone in a contest, so there's no way this is a serious effort to challenge licenses because the station cannot possibly control what the network airs, even if they are owned by them, and we're not in a situation like the Super Bowl halftime show. KTRK isn't going to get anyone in Houston whining about a lead balloon punchline, and nor is WPVI.

 

Docking a license just because of a tired joke just feels petty and lame, especially when you've had a national news operation sanewash their way towards a national newscast that's just now a big-budget Inside Edition rather than a full sum-up of today's events (and which is happy to pre-empt anything on the schedule, like they did deciding the last five minutes of General Hospital didn't need to be seen so David Muir could show video of politicians chatting and remind us of how King Charles is).

[MorningNews 1711]

42 minutes ago, Reweivvt88 said:

What's so crazy to me is this is happening not because ABC News is doing good journalism and covering trump accurately, ABC News sanewashes, justifies, and downplays everything trump does just like the rest of U.S. television news media, it's because of an entertainment late night talk show. Disney has destroyed the credibility of ABC News and made it look no different than state TV in other authoritarian countries yet they are still a target because they didn't cancel their late night talk show like CBS did. The FCC is signaling that you can turn your entire news organization into pro U.S. government propaganda and still be a target if you air any entertainment programming that is critical of the evil fascist U.S. government.

 

For the U.S. news media, it's fine for trump to order the killing of innocent people, fine for him to order the U.S. "law enforcement" to grab innocent people off the street and send them to torture camps with no due process, fine to put thousands of innocent children who have committed no crime themselves in awful prisons because their parents brought them to the country illegally. Fine for him to threaten to kill a "whole civilisation" , But his life is so precious that any joke about his life ending is just so awful and when someone tries to take his life it's not okay for the news media to be "neutral" like it pretends to be for everything else, When Jeffrey Epstein  died the U.S. news media was not saying his death was tragic, but any attempt to take trumps life is beyond horrible and when he finally dies the U.S. news media will act like his death is a devastating somber event. If nobody deserves to be shot and killed no matter what, where was the outrage when secret service shot and killed the first person who tried to shoot trump? The U.S. government shoots and kills people all the time when there are non-lethal alternatives and it's no big deal. Death is only tragic to the U.S. news media when it's evil far right wing Americans. Just making a joke about the death of a right wing president who has ordered the murder of thousands of people is enough for massive outrage and the FCC coming after you. 

I watch a lot of ABC and definitely haven’t gotten the impression of state run media. Kind of absurd to claim that of the network employing Mary Bruce, Rachel Smith and George Stephanopoulos who are fearless in their pursuits of truth through all of this administration’s lies.

 

On top of that, Disney has pretty immediately signaled they won’t be rolling over. Brian Stelter even reported this afternoon that Disney has signaled to station groups that contractual obligations to carry network programming will be enforced.

[abric 227]

At this point, I really don't care. Simply, people are stupid. Enough said.

[AmericanErrorist 267]

30 minutes ago, nathannah said:

The biggest station revocation came only because KDND literally killed someone in a contest, so there's no way this is a serious effort to challenge licenses because the station cannot possibly control what the network airs, even if they are owned by them, and we're not in a situation like the Super Bowl halftime show. KTRK isn't going to get anyone in Houston whining about a lead balloon punchline, and nor is WPVI.

1)The biggest station revocation in history was forcing RKO General's stations to be sold over financial practices, not over anything said on air

2) These proceedings are technically over Disney's DEI policies, hardly a meaningful basis for license challenge, but easier to defend than an outright censorship effort and it doesn't put the affiliates at risk for having aired Kimmel (including stations owned by Nexstar and Sinclair).

[MorningNews 1711]

1 hour ago, nathannah said:

The thing that gets me is this joke about 'old man about to die with a young wife' has been around for decades. It's the last half of Anna Nicole Smith's life. We pretty much can count like clockwork when Rupert Murdoch has had enough of last decade's wife and wants a new one. Leonardo DiCaprio has an entire legend about how he moves on the moment his girlfriend turns 25! I'm more offended by 'fat man/thin wife' sitcoms much more than I ever will be 'lol they're marrying a hot young lady before they die'.

 

It wasn't even that vicious of a joke, it was just the most benign 'we're waiting for the funeral' jab that's been made since that man moved from Marla Maples to Melania. The biggest station revocation came only because KDND literally killed someone in a contest, so there's no way this is a serious effort to challenge licenses because the station cannot possibly control what the network airs, even if they are owned by them, and we're not in a situation like the Super Bowl halftime show. KTRK isn't going to get anyone in Houston whining about a lead balloon punchline, and nor is WPVI.

 

Docking a license just because of a tired joke just feels petty and lame, especially when you've had a national news operation sanewash their way towards a national newscast that's just now a big-budget Inside Edition rather than a full sum-up of today's events (and which is happy to pre-empt anything on the schedule, like they did deciding the last five minutes of General Hospital didn't need to be seen so David Muir could show video of politicians chatting and remind us of how King Charles is).

One very interesting aspect of this to me is how deeply unpopular the administration has become relative to last September when ABC suspended Kimmel over the Kirk thing. They were also spooked by the public’s reaction then. I really hope Disney can be a trigger for corporations and institutions all over to stand up to this excessive bullsh*t.

 

Also this was the Brian Stelter reporting I referenced earlier: 

 

[Reweivvt88 173]

1 hour ago, MorningNews said:

I watch a lot of ABC and definitely haven’t gotten the impression of state run media. Kind of absurd to claim that of the network employing Mary Bruce, Rachel Smith and George Stephanopoulos who are fearless in their pursuits of truth through all of this administration’s lies.

 

On top of that, Disney has pretty immediately signaled they won’t be rolling over. Brian Stelter even reported this afternoon that Disney has signaled to station groups that contractual obligations to carry network programming will be enforced.

Yes sometimes someone like George Stephanopoulos will point out a lie or ask a tough question, and yes ABC News hasn't fired him for doing so, but they did fire Terry Moran. if ABC News was your only source of media, or even worse if you only watched ABC World News Tonight as your source of news, you would be totally unaware of most horrible evil things this administration is doing. The ICE raids for example get almost no coverage. On September 30 when ICE agents in Chicago zip-tied children with no clothes, it was not even mentioned on ABC World News Tonight even though this would normally be the type of story ABC News would be all over (the local ABC Chicago station did cover it). The kids being tortured in ICE "detention" get almost no coverage.  Yes they cover things like ICE agents shooting Americans in public but just like state TV in other authoritarian countries most of the terrorizing by the Government goes unreported or downplayed. That's what makes them appear like state TV in my opinion, there are 2 types of state TV, ones like RT that justifies and defends whatever the Government is doing, and ones like CGTN that ignores and downplays what the Government is doing and focuses on other news, and that's what ABC News looks like to me. The trump admin still does interviews with ABC News, and ABC News is rarely criticized by trump, the fact that the FCC is trying to take ABC off the air because of Jimmy Kimmel and not ABC News coverage kind of speaks for itself. Disney has ensured that ABC News is no threat to trump, but he's coming after them anyway because of Kimmel. 

[24994J 5888]

1 hour ago, Reweivvt88 said:

Yes sometimes someone like George Stephanopoulos will point out a lie or ask a tough question, and yes ABC News hasn't fired him for doing so, but they did fire Terry Moran. if ABC News was your only source of media, or even worse if you only watched ABC World News Tonight as your source of news, you would be totally unaware of most horrible evil things this administration is doing. The ICE raids for example get almost no coverage. On September 30 when ICE agents in Chicago zip-tied children with no clothes, it was not even mentioned on ABC World News Tonight even though this would normally be the type of story ABC News would be all over (the local ABC Chicago station did cover it). The kids being tortured in ICE "detention" get almost no coverage.  Yes they cover things like ICE agents shooting Americans in public but just like state TV in other authoritarian countries most of the terrorizing by the Government goes unreported or downplayed. That's what makes them appear like state TV in my opinion, there are 2 types of state TV, ones like RT that justifies and defends whatever the Government is doing, and ones like CGTN that ignores and downplays what the Government is doing and focuses on other news, and that's what ABC News looks like to me. The trump admin still does interviews with ABC News, and ABC News is rarely criticized by trump, the fact that the FCC is trying to take ABC off the air because of Jimmy Kimmel and not ABC News coverage kind of speaks for itself. Disney has ensured that ABC News is no threat to trump, but he's coming after them anyway because of Kimmel. 

 

Respectfully, if you think ABC (News) has become the equivalent of state-run media, then you're not quite familiar with true, legitimate, state-run media.

[mre29 1967]

3 hours ago, MorningNews said:

One very interesting aspect of this to me is how deeply unpopular the administration has become relative to last September when ABC suspended Kimmel over the Kirk thing. They were also spooked by the public’s reaction then. I really hope Disney can be a trigger for corporations and institutions all over to stand up to this excessive bullsh*t.

 

Also this was the Brian Stelter reporting I referenced earlier: 

 

 

Also available here via Stelter's newsletter.

 

 

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Basically we're under a dictatorship right now.  No one will call it that but that's basically what it is.  It is all to appease dear leader and his whims.

 

So therefore, anything he says is bullshit.  He lies and breaks the law in virtually everything he does so nothing that comes out of our government is legitimate anymore.  And even if it is, It's a lone act hidden under hundreds and even thousands of illegal actions. 

 

As soon as he is out of power, a whole bunch of people are going to prison.  Hopefully him if he's still alive when it all ends.

Edited April 29 by tyrannical bastard

[GodfreyGR 812]

Here is my perspective- thoughts about the president aside... What isn't helping Kimmel right now, nor his rationale for the joke, is that there are plenty of examples on social media (pick a platform, any platform) where there are people are openly cheering for an assassin, upset that shooters miss, and wishing someone would be successful at completing that task. You can disagree with someone and even loathe them, but wishing death upon someone, anyone, publicly is terrible- and doesn't help the problem right now.

That said, I think the president has far overreached with retaliation on many fronts and criticism is warranted and more than fair. However, I can and do also believe that Kimmel's explanation on Monday was simply trying to put the cat in the bag. For the first amendment crowd, correct- Jimmy can say what he believes is a joke, but on the flipside of the coin you cannot control or demand how people receive your joke. I might think a comedian is hilarious, you might very well think the same comedian is awful. While Kimmel's skit was written in a way where he was able to say "I meant their age difference", that reference could have easily been written into the joke itself and had prevented *some* of the backlash. 

A previous comment noted that the age difference jokes are not new- and correct on that front. But late night comedy has changed. Carson, Leno, Letterman, et al. would all wear their stripes at times, but also take shots at all sides of the spectrum- something that enough recent data shows has become quite one-sided (Kimmel, Fallon, Colbert, Gutfeld, and Stewart are all guilty in their own rights). 

Cooler heads need to prevail on both sides, and quickly.

[HanSolo 467]

This is not a “both sides” issue. The government using its full power—even threatening to—over a joke (and can we dispense with the subterfuge about it being over DEI?) is wholly and completely unacceptable. Random people on social media spouting off about their hatred for this president is not remotely the same as they do not possess the power to force a business to capitulate on a whim.

 

Either we believe in the protections of the first amendment or we do not. And the very idea of the government threading a license over content is de facto state-run media. There has already been a concerted effort to stifle criticism, and now it’s being ratcheted up.

[GodfreyGR 812]

1 hour ago, HanSolo said:

This is not a “both sides” issue. The government using its full power—even threatening to—over a joke (and can we dispense with the subterfuge about it being over DEI?) is wholly and completely unacceptable. Random people on social media spouting off about their hatred for this president is not remotely the same as they do not possess the power to force a business to capitulate on a whim.

 

Either we believe in the protections of the first amendment or we do not. And the very idea of the government threading a license over content is de facto state-run media. There has already been a concerted effort to stifle criticism, and now it’s being ratcheted up.

Again, we agree that there is government overreach and that reviewing licenses over content screams past that overreach line. Over a cup of coffee, we would take a step back and probably agree on 98% of things. But, if we believe in the protection of the First Amendment, we should also agree that is still a difference between "spouting off", and saying that precious assassins are "rolling over in their graves", and desiring someone with "decent aim" (current viral TikTok video quotes) regardless of who the subject matter is. When things like that take off, it only provides others with unnecessary ammunition to tie that to recent quotes from a late night host to get to where we are currently at.

Kimmel should be allowed to make jokes, wanting someone dead should always be condemned, and the FCC has no business to be reviewing ABC O&O licenses over this. I stand by both sides being abhorrent in their own ways and we deserve better across the board. I'm rooting for humanity, and right now it's not in Washington D.C., on TV, or any social media platform.

[Reweivvt88 173]

11 hours ago, GodfreyGR said:

Again, we agree that there is government overreach and that reviewing licenses over content screams past that overreach line. Over a cup of coffee, we would take a step back and probably agree on 98% of things. But, if we believe in the protection of the First Amendment, we should also agree that is still a difference between "spouting off", and saying that precious assassins are "rolling over in their graves", and desiring someone with "decent aim" (current viral TikTok video quotes) regardless of who the subject matter is. When things like that take off, it only provides others with unnecessary ammunition to tie that to recent quotes from a late night host to get to where we are currently at.

Kimmel should be allowed to make jokes, wanting someone dead should always be condemned, and the FCC has no business to be reviewing ABC O&O licenses over this. I stand by both sides being abhorrent in their own ways and we deserve better across the board. I'm rooting for humanity, and right now it's not in Washington D.C., on TV, or any social media platform.

Jimmy Kimmel didn't say anything wrong. There is no real public backlash, it's all MAGA garbage and the only people upset are republicans who will attack Jimmy Kimmel no matter what he says. ABC caved to MAGA last fall and it was such a disaster they had to backtrack and reverse their decision. 

 

trump and the people in his government/army/ice/police/etc.. are actually doing evil actions and are responsible for the murder and torture of thousands of innocent people and you are claiming stuff some Democrats are saying makes "both sides abhorrent"? Nobody is publicly wishing death on trump because of something Kimmel said. Trying to tie the two together is ridiculous. People are wishing death on trump because of what trump and his government is actually doing. Since when has wishing death on a evil person who is a threat to the lives of others been broadly condemned? It is NOT controversial for people to publicly wish death on terrorists, evil dictators, etc.. It happens all the time. If you go over social media you will find comments of people wishing death on multiple terrible groups of people. Everyone from terrorists to evil dictators to murders to child predators. Republicans are the biggest supporters of the death penalty and our Government murders people all the time when there are non-lethal alternatives. I say this as someone who actually wants Trump to stay alive because Trump dying will change nothing, the people in his government are more evil and dangerous than he is, but when he dies his death will be publicly celebrated by a huge part of America and it will be very interesting to see how the U.S. news media handles this. 

 

Edited April 30 by Reweivvt88

[JRyan 694]

I do not think it is the least bit wise of Kimmel to joke about the death of the President - how ever implied or mild the joke may purport to be.   Even though Kimmel denied wrongdoing in his later monologue, he knew better than to make such a joke especially after last year's fiasco.  I don't care who is the President or which political party he is part of.  Jokes that hint at the death of the incumbent President should not be on television.  Period.  And that should be non-negotiable.  Our society has never been more divided and making jokes about a President's death does nothing to unify the viewing audience on common ground and should never be accepted as part of our discourse in society.

 

ABC management can fix this mess by talking to Kimmel behind the scenes and ensure he steers clear of such jokes in the future.  And provided that a clear agreement is reached, then Kimmel should be given another chance.  That said, this is bad for business at ABC and management will have to make some difficult decisions in the coming days.

Edited April 30 by JRyan

[MorningNews 1711]

18 minutes ago, JRyan said:

I do not think it is the least bit wise of Kimmel to joke about the death of the President - how ever implied or mild the joke may purport to be.   Even though Kimmel denied wrongdoing in his later monologue, he knew better than to make such a joke especially after last year's fiasco.  I don't care who is the President or which political party he is part of.  Jokes that hint at the death of the incumbent President should not be on television.  Period.  And that should be non-negotiable.  Our society has never been more divided and making jokes about a President's death does nothing to unify the viewing audience on common ground and should never be accepted as part of our discourse in society.

 

ABC management can fix this mess by talking to Kimmel behind the scenes and ensure he steers clear of such jokes in the future.  And provided that a clear agreement is reached, then Kimmel should be given another chance.  That said, this is bad for business at ABC and management will have to make some difficult decisions in the coming days.

Thankfully ABC doesn’t seem to be as feckless as you believe they should be.

 

If Jimmy can’t make the joke about their age gap, then why did Trump make a similar remark about the age gap just yesterday? This ridiculous capitulation and self-censoring is frankly a very idiotic suggestion.

Edited April 30 by MorningNews

[Reweivvt88 173]

1 hour ago, JRyan said:

I do not think it is the least bit wise of Kimmel to joke about the death of the President - how ever implied or mild the joke may purport to be.   Even though Kimmel denied wrongdoing in his later monologue, he knew better than to make such a joke especially after last year's fiasco.  I don't care who is the President or which political party he is part of.  Jokes that hint at the death of the incumbent President should not be on television.  Period.  And that should be non-negotiable.  Our society has never been more divided and making jokes about a President's death does nothing to unify the viewing audience on common ground and should never be accepted as part of our discourse in society.

 

ABC management can fix this mess by talking to Kimmel behind the scenes and ensure he steers clear of such jokes in the future.  And provided that a clear agreement is reached, then Kimmel should be given another chance.  That said, this is bad for business at ABC and management will have to make some difficult decisions in the coming days.

Seriously? The president of the United States can do anything with no limits of evil but a late night host joking about his death should never be acceptable and that's non negotiable no matter what? Yes I know his corrupt supreme court gave him total immunity but what if he followed through on his threat to end civilization in Iran? What if he decides to do what he has always wanted to do and drop a nuclear bomb somewhere? We are talking about a joke here, he's not calling for people to assassinate anyone, and yet even a joke about him dying should never be accepted because he's the "president". 

Jimmy Kimmel has nothing to do with the country being divided. The country is extremely divided because one half of the country is terrorizing the other half. Could you imagine in the 1930s someone saying "The jews and the nazis are so divided right now and they are never going to be united if we keep talking bad about Hitler". That's what you sound like. 

 

Donald Trump posts about killing public figures all the time. He has millions of cult like loyal followers who are mentally unstable with military style machine guns and he still posts about how his enemies should be killed by firing squad. Even republicans who turn on him like MTG get death threats from his supporters. The fact that you think a late night talk show host should be held to a higher standard than the president of the United States when all he is doing is a silly joke and the president constantly puts peoples actual safety in danger with actual death threats is stunning.

Edited April 30 by Reweivvt88

[24994J 5888]

Annnnnnnnnd, let's all cool down for a bit. Maybe we should all let the dust settle on this thread until we get actual headlines, because some of us can debate back and forth til blue in the face. Not restricting posting, not locking the thread, so I don't want to hear anything about censorship. I'm just suggesting that everyone has well-established their points, by now.

Edited April 30 by 24994J

[NowBergen 924]

At this point, should the FCC premature revenge motivated early review of ABC/Disney licenses be a separate thread, since, Nexstar, at least publicly, with its own problems, is not chiming in? 

 

If trump did not want satirical jokes about the age difference with his wife, including jokes made for years similar to Kimmel's, then he should never entered public life.  He, his actions, his life, his looks, his speech all become fair game.  That's the way it's always been.  Saturday Night went to town on Ford stumbling on stairs. Comedians have always mocked public figures and leaders.  Let's not forget he gives them lots of material to work with.  Sadly, he can't take it and now has ordered this review which Carr was all too giddy to comply in an abuse of regulatory power.  

[mre29 1967]

5 hours ago, NowBergen said:

At this point, should the FCC premature revenge motivated early review of ABC/Disney licenses be a separate thread, since, Nexstar, at least publicly, with its own problems, is not chiming in? 

 

Probably.

 

[HanSolo 467]

5 hours ago, NowBergen said:

At this point, should the FCC premature revenge motivated early review of ABC/Disney licenses be a separate thread, since, Nexstar, at least publicly, with its own problems, is not chiming in? 

 

If trump did not want satirical jokes about the age difference with his wife, including jokes made for years similar to Kimmel's, then he should never entered public life.  He, his actions, his life, his looks, his speech all become fair game.  That's the way it's always been.  Saturday Night went to town on Ford stumbling on stairs. Comedians have always mocked public figures and leaders.  Let's not forget he gives them lots of material to work with.  Sadly, he can't take it and now has ordered this review which Carr was all too giddy to comply in an abuse of regulatory power.  

This seems fair. These kinds of things are not one-offs. This represents yet another means by which the government is trying to coerce companies by threat of dragging them through the litigation process should they not capitulate.