{"id":169418,"date":"2025-09-25T23:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T23:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/169418\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T23:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T23:45:09","slug":"trumps-censorship-backfires-as-jimmy-kimmel-scores-ratings-bonanza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/169418\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s censorship backfires as Jimmy Kimmel scores \u2018ratings bonanza\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Donald Trump<\/a> \u201clost this round\u201d \u2014 that is Ari Melber\u2019s assessment after Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s record-breaking return to ABC. On Wednesday\u2019s \u201cThe Beat,\u201d<\/a> Melber called the episode a \u201cratings bonanza,\u201d noting 6 million viewers <\/a>tuned in to watch Tuesday\u2019s \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live.\u201d On social media, the comedian\u2019s opening monologue had racked up more than 26 million views as of Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

Melber said the ratings show the Trump administration\u2019s attempt to squash criticism from the late-night host backfired<\/a> \u2014 in spectacular fashion. \u201cWhen you try to suppress something, you sometimes draw more attention to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Beat\u201d host referenced a popular nickname for this phenomenon: the Streisand Effect. The term was coined in 2005, after Barbra Streisand<\/a> tried to suppress a single picture of her home in California. As Melber recounted, her effort \u201cended up backfiring and drawing far more interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, while Melber acknowledged that Trump\u2019s censorship attempt may have misfired this time, he also cautioned that a phenomenon like the Streisand Effect is only possible when the information being suppressed<\/a> is still accessible.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it is a fact that there\u2019s more interest in Kimmel\u2019s monologue, but \u2014 yes, \u2018but\u2019 I\u2019m sorry there\u2019s always a \u2018but\u2019 these days \u2014 that still will only matter in reality if there is the freedom to find the material and get it,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe Streisand Effect does not work in North Korea or places with legal, practical, tech limits on what you might find on your TV or on their version of what they call the internet, which is censored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melber highlighted how many local affiliates run by Nexstar and Sinclair<\/a> are still refusing to air Kimmel\u2019s show, seemingly going along with \u201cthe MAGA government crackdown\u201d and bringing America one step closer to the practices of autocracies like North Korea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an old saying in politics, that it\u2019s a thin line between the impossible and the inevitable, meaning sometimes something that you don\u2019t think could ever happen, happens,\u201d Melber continued, noting that right now, America has \u201ca leader who openly tries to abuse government power to sacrifice or end the very first amendment of our Constitution\u201d and \u201cthe basis for all the rest of our civic dialog and democracy.\u201d <\/p>\n

So while many Americans may believe the U.S. going the way of North Korea<\/a> and other autocracies is impossible, Melber says, \u201cthat\u2019s where we are.\u201d And according to him, the only way to prevent a further crackdown is for the American people to stand up and band together to fight censorship. \u201cThe rest is up to us,\u201d Melber said.<\/p>\n

You can watch Melber\u2019s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump \u201clost this round\u201d \u2014 that is Ari Melber\u2019s assessment after Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s record-breaking return to ABC.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-169418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169418","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=169418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}