\n The blackout of \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d is halfway over.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sinclair, one of the two major station groups that preempted the talk show earlier this month, is allowing the show to return to its ABC-affiliated stations Friday evening.\n <\/p>\n
\n This means that Kimmel will be seen again in big cities like Washington, DC and Seattle, as well as a few dozen other markets across the US.\n <\/p>\n
\n Nexstar, the other major station group blacking out Kimmel, did not immediately respond to CNN\u2019s request for comment on whether it will end the politically charged preemption.\n <\/p>\n
\n Both Nexstar and Sinclair have been accused of trying to curry favor with President Trump and TV station regulator Brendan Carr by keeping Kimmel off the air even after ABC reinstated the show nationally earlier this week.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sinclair claimed in a statement on Friday that \u201cour decision to preempt this program was independent of any government interaction or influence.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The preemption began last week when Carr leaned into a conservative outcry over Kimmel\u2019s Sept. 15 monologue about the suspected killer of Charlie Kirk by condemning the late-night host and threatening local station licenses.\n <\/p>\n
\n Nexstar and Sinclair informed ABC that it would yank Kimmel from its stations, leading ABC to preempt the show nationwide.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sinclair said at the time that ABC\u2019s preemption was \u201cnot enough\u201d and said it wouldn\u2019t bring the show back until \u201cformal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network\u2019s commitment to professionalism and accountability.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Sinclair also called on Kimmel to apologize to Kirk\u2019s family and make a donation to Kirk\u2019s conservative political organization, Turning Point USA, although the company didn\u2019t say that was a condition of ending the blackout.\n <\/p>\n
\n Industry analysts said ABC, not Sinclair, held most of the cards in the standoff because affiliates are bound by network contracts.\n <\/p>\n
\n On Friday, Sinclair said that it did have discussions with ABC, but that the network did not accept its proposals \u201cto strengthen accountability, viewer feedback, and community dialogue, including a network-wide independent ombudsman.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhile ABC and Disney have not yet adopted these measures, and Sinclair respects their right to make those decisions under our network affiliate agreements, we believe such measures could strengthen trust and accountability,\u201d the company added.\n <\/p>\n
\n On Thursday night, Kimmel made light of the continued preemptions in his monologue.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cEven though we are still being preempted in 60 American cities, on Tuesday, we had our second-highest rated show in almost 23 years on the air,\u201d he said. \u201cOur monologue from Tuesday night has more than 21 million views just on YouTube alone. And I want to say, we couldn\u2019t have done it without you, Mr. President. Thank you very much. We got the Trump bump, and we appreciate it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The blackout of \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d is halfway over. Sinclair, one of the two major station groups that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-39500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}