Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s late night talk show, which was abruptly pulled from the air last week after the U.S. government threatened broadcasters, will be back on Tuesday, Disney announced Monday.<\/p>\n
The sudden suspension by ABC, which is owned by Disney, came after conservative complaints about comments Kimmel had made in the wake of the shooting of Christian activist Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast 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,\u201d said a company statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kimmel\u2019s abrupt disappearance from the airwaves, apparently after government pressure on broadcasters who distribute ABC, sparked fury in liberal America, with opponents saying Kimmel had been targeted because he is a frequent critic of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump had celebrated Kimmel\u2019s removal, calling it \u201cGreat News for America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opponents saw it as the latest step in creeping government control of free speech, which is an article of faith for many Americans as well as a right enshrined in the country\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n
Some on the political right were also uneasy, including people who regularly count themselves as Trump allies, like Ted Cruz, the conservative senator from Texas, and firebrand broadcaster Tucker Carlson.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly complained about negative media coverage of him, and last week said he thought it was \u201cillegal.\u201d<\/p>\n
FCC threat<\/p>\n
The Kimmel episode unfolded a week after Kirk, a close Trump ally, was shot dead on a Utah university campus, setting off a bitter battle over responsibility in deeply polarized America, with conservatives — including Trump — blaming \u201cthe radical left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities have charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson and have not indicated they are looking for anyone else.<\/p>\n
In his show-opening monologue last Monday, Kimmel said \u201cthe MAGA gang\u201d was \u201cdesperately trying to characterize this kid… as anything other than one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then showed footage of Trump pivoting from a question about how he had been affected by Kirk\u2019s death to boasting about the new ballroom he is building at the White House, prompting laughter from the studio audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not how an adult grieves the murder of somebody called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish,\u201d Kimmel said.<\/p>\n
Two days later, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr threatened the licenses of ABC affiliates that broadcast Kimmel\u2019s show.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s past time these (affiliates) themselves push back… and say, \u2018Listen, we\u2019re not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out, because we\u2019re running the possibility of license revocation from the FCC,\u2019\u201d he told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson.<\/p>\n
Nexstar — one of the country\u2019s biggest owners of ABC affiliate stations, which is in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar merger requiring FCC approval — then announced it would be removing the show from its stations.<\/p>\n
Sinclair, another media group that also yanked the show, said Monday it would not return it to the airwaves, despite Disney\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming,\u201d the company said on social media, using an industry term for removing a show.<\/p>\n
\u201cDiscussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show\u2019s potential return.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hollywood stars<\/p>\n
Before Disney\u2019s about-face was announced on Monday, a constellation of Hollywood stars signed an open letter calling the decision to pull the show \u201ca dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation (that is) unconstitutional and un-American.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government is threatening private companies and individuals that the President disagrees with. We can\u2019t let this threat to our freedom of speech go unanswered,\u201d said the letter by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).<\/p>\n
Signatories to the letter included Marvel star Pedro Pascal, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro.<\/p>\n
After Monday\u2019s announcement the ACLU welcomed the news, saying: \u201cABC made the right call.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Huw Griffith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s late night talk show, which was abruptly pulled from the air last week after the U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,49,48,75,348],"class_list":{"0":"post-163213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}