Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s late night talk show is being suspended by ABC over his viral comments about Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n
A network spokesperson said Wednesday that Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be \u201cpreempted indefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n
More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n
The network\u2019s action came just after Nexstar, one of the biggest owners of local TV stations in the country \u2014 including 28 ABC affiliates \u2014 said it will preempt the series for the immediate future. A source said that ABC had also heard from at least one other station group about the show, suggesting that an affiliate revolt may have played a role in the decision.<\/p>\n
The dramatic move follows Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr threatening to take action<\/a> against ABC affiliates in the wake of Kimmel suggesting the Kirk shooting suspect was a MAGA Republican during a monologue earlier this week.<\/p>\n A source tells\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter\u00a0Kimmel was prepared to address the backlash on Wednesday night\u2019s show. He planned to explain what he said and demonstrate how it was taken out of context.<\/p>\n When asked by\u00a0THR, the source said that Kimmel was not planning on apologizing. He felt that what he said did not require an apology.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to thank Nexstar for doing the right thing,\u201d Carr told THR. \u201cLocal broadcasters have an obligation to serve the public interest. While this may be an unprecedented decision, it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values. I hope that other broadcasters follow Nexstar\u2019s lead.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel\u2019s original comments were as follows: \u201cWe hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Then on Wednesday, Carr went on a podcast where he slammed Kimmel and declared that affiliates should \u201cpush back\u201d on ABC and say, in effect, \u201cListen, 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 if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.\u201d<\/p>\n Nexstar issued a statement late Wednesday they would not air tonight\u2019s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and would preempt the show for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Kimmel\u2019s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,\u201d said Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar\u2019s broadcasting division. \u201cContinuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n Nexstar currently operates mostly in small or midsize markets, though they include the ABC stations in New Orleans and Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n The decision by Nexstar comes as the broadcast station is seeking FCC approval for its $6.2 billion mega deal to acquire Tegna, a deal that would make Nexstar by far the largest owner of local TV stations in the country.<\/p>\n The FCC would have to raise the 40 percent ownership cap in order to let the deal advance. It is not clear if Tegna will follow Nexstar\u2019s decision. Tegna operates 13 ABC stations, including in Austin and Sacramento.<\/p>\n Late Wednesday, Sinclair, which owns more ABC stations than any other affiliate group (including the ABC station in Washington D.C.), said that it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel\u2019s timeslot on Friday.<\/p>\n Sinclair also called on Kimmel to apologize to the Kirk family, and said that it would not air his show even if ABC brings it back, \u201cuntil formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network\u2019s commitment to professionalism and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n Carr has used his perch to launch investigations into broadcasters that have caught the ire of President Trump, with their DEI policies the most frequent target. However, he has also sent letters about select content, and the FCC investigation into last year\u2019s CBS 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris remains open.<\/p>\n During a Wednesday segment on FOX News\u2019 Hannity following the news of Kimmel\u2019s suspension, Carr said, \u201cLate night shows, something\u2019s gone seriously awry there. They went from going for applause, from laugh lines to applause lines. They went from being court gestures that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Nexstar stood up and said, \u2018Look, we have the license, and we don\u2019t want to run this anymore. We don\u2019t think it serves the interests of our community.\u2019 Sinclair did the same thing,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, there\u2019s more work to go, but I\u2019m very glad to see that America\u2019s broadcasters are standing up to serve the interests of their community. We don\u2019t just have this progressive foie gras coming out from New York and Hollywood.\u201d <\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s late night talk show is being suspended by ABC over his viral comments about Charlie Kirk.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[66774,66660,66777,6491,61370,96,10203,66775,66776,10058,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-144603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-abc-affiliates","9":"tag-brendan-carr","10":"tag-broadcasters","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-charlie-kirk","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","15":"tag-local-tv-stations","16":"tag-nexstar","17":"tag-the-hollywood-reporter","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}