Jimmy Kimmel is coming back.
ABC said on Monday that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return to its airwaves on Tuesday, ending an impasse that began last week.
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, said in a statement.
“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the statement said. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
Disney did not say whether all ABC affiliates, some of which balked at carrying “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last week, would carry Tuesday’s show.
The network had removed Mr. Kimmel “indefinitely” last week after a top Trump regulator and many conservatives said he inaccurately described the politics of the man accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
The subsequent suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” almost immediately morphed into a flashpoint for free speech in America.
ABC pulled the show just hours after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said on a podcast that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people,” and that the agency was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson.
Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, sitting under the agency’s seal.Credit…Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times
Mr. Kimmel had planned to address the growing firestorm during his opening monologue for the Wednesday episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” But after senior Disney executives — including its chief executive, Robert A. Iger, and its head of television, Dana Walden — reviewed Mr. Kimmel’s planned remarks, they worried his monologue would make the situation worse, and decided to bench him and his show instead.
Disney did not publicly explain its decision at the time, and Mr. Kimmel has not commented publicly on the show’s suspension.
Conversations between Disney and Mr. Kimmel to return his show to the air formally began on Thursday, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. Mr. Iger, Ms. Walden and Rob Mills, the ABC executive who directly oversees the show, met with Mr. Kimmel at the office of his lawyer, Andy Galker, in the Century City neighborhood of Los Angeles. Mr. Kimmel’s manager, James Dixon, participated in the meeting via a video call.
The session ended without Mr. Kimmel’s agreeing to changes in the monologue he had planned to deliver on Wednesday, which had sought to clarify his earlier commentary but also punched back against figures on the right who he believed had misrepresented those comments.
Mr. Iger and Ms. Walden continued to communicate with Mr. Kimmel throughout the weekend, the two people said. An agreement about when to bring the show back, and what Mr. Kimmel would say upon his return, was made on Monday morning.
A representative for Mr. Kimmel did not respond to requests for comment.
It is still unclear whether Nexstar and Sinclair — two major television operators that own many ABC affiliates and have vowed to pre-empt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the aftermath of his comments — will air future episodes of the show. Sinclair and Nexstar control just over 20 percent of ABC affiliates combined, according to BIA Advisory Services, a research firm.
Representatives for Nexstar and Sinclair did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The imbroglio began last Monday when Mr. Kimmel used his opening monologue to say “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Conservatives pounced, saying the comments mischaracterized the political beliefs of Tyler Robinson, the accused shooter. Prosecutors have said that Mr. Robinson objected to Mr. Kirk’s “hatred,” but the authorities have not said which of Mr. Kirk’s views Mr. Robinson had found hateful. Mr. Robinson’s mother said that her son had recently shifted toward the political left and become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.”
People attend a vigil for Charlie Kirk at a city park after his killing the previous day at Utah Valley University in Orem.Credit…Loren Elliott for The New York Times
In the days since ABC’s decision, at least five Hollywood unions, collectively representing more than 400,000 workers, publicly condemned the company.
The screenwriters’ union decried what they called “corporate cowardice,” and organized a protest last week outside the main gate at Disney headquarters in Burbank, Calif. Damon Lindelof, a creator of ABC’s “Lost,” said that if Mr. Kimmel’s program did not return from suspension, he couldn’t “in good conscience work for the company that imposed it.” Michael Eisner, a former chief executive of Disney, issued a rare rebuke on social media on Friday, as well. Some conservatives expressed misgivings, too. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, likened Mr. Carr’s comments to a mob boss, arguing that his comments to potentially retaliate against media companies were “dangerous as hell.”
“I like Brendan Carr, but we should not be in this business,” Mr. Cruz said on his podcast last week. “We should denounce it.”
Disney also came under pressure from its customers, some of whom canceled Disney+ subscriptions and Disney World vacations in protest.
Senator Ted Cruz was among conservatives who expressed misgivings about last week’s decision.Credit…Loren Elliott for The New York Times
Mr. Carr, for his part, used an appearance in Manhattan before Disney’s announcement on Monday to try to minimize his own role in the events that led to Mr. Kimmel’s suspension.
He said that Disney had merely made a “business decision” in response to feedback from viewers and affiliates, and he argued that Democrats’ claims of undue government pressure were “a campaign of projection and distortion.”
“Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he’s in because of his ratings, not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Mr. Carr said. (Ratings for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” played no role in Disney’s decision making, according to the two people briefed on the matter.)
Anna M. Gomez, the sole Democratic commissioner of the F.C.C., has rejected Mr. Carr’s argument that ABC was only making a “business decision.” In social media posts on Monday, she wrote, “This regrettable chapter is a stain on the FCC,” and she applauded Mr. Kimmel’s reinstatement, saying that Disney found “its courage in the face of clear government intimidation.”
Mr. Kimmel’s return on Tuesday will make for one of the most anticipated episodes of a late-night television show in years. Over the past few days, many other late-night hosts — including Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers — used their shows and platforms to strongly speak out against Mr. Kimmel’s temporary removal.