Update September 26 4:55pm ET: Nexstar has now agreed to resuming airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” via its ABC affiliates as well.
Update September 26 2:20pm ET: Sinclair has announced it is ending its preemption of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” which had been dark on Sinclair-owned channels for the last three episodes since the show returned to ABC on September 23.
Sinclair, a media group that owns ABC affiliates in multiple major cities, has long had a conservative reputation, and had initially said that it would air an hour-long tribute show to Charlie Kirk in the usual timeslot of the late night show on Friday September 19. Sinclair didn’t actually follow through on that and instead aired another episode of “Celebrity Family Feud,” which ABC put in that slot nationwide following the network pulling Kimmel.
It was widely pondered how long Sinclair would hold out in refusing to air Kimmel. After a certain window, ABC could offer the series to another station in a market where Sinclair is its go-to affiliate. Sinclair resuming the broadcasts means that the show can now be seen again in Seattle, Portland, Tulsa, St. Louis, Little Rock, Columbus, and Washington, D.C.
However, it still won’t be aired by ABC affiliates owned by Nexstar, which means the preemption continues in Richmond, Nashville, Salt Lake City, New Orleans, and most of Connecticut and upstate New York. Nexstar is trying to get a $6.2 billion merger with Tegna approved by the Trump administration.
Original story, published September 22:
So “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” being suspended “indefinitely” really meant only preempting three airings in the end.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” will return Tuesday night, September 23, The Walt Disney Company announced in a statement acquired by IndieWire Monday afternoon.
“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’s statement reads. “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. 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.”
On Wednesday September 17, ABC announced that they were suspending the show “indefinitely” following a joke that Kimmel made on air that many felt was insensitive and inflammatory in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. He said that “We had 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 with everything they can to score political points from it.” Many felt that this remark implied the killer was MAGA, which evidence does not suggest is the case, though it is a fact that he comes from a conservative family of registered Republicans who did vote for Donald Trump.
IndieWire noted in the aftermath that Disney harmed its own business interests by capitulating to Trump. Kimmel was a serious investment of years and tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars. Someone who was a face of the brand, hosted “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” as well as his late night show, and had even hosted the Oscars for ABC four times. However, Disney also does need the Trump Department of Justice’s approval to go ahead with an acquisition of sports streamer Fubo as well as merging ESPN and The NFL Network.
The suspension had prompted days of discussion about the status of free speech in America and with serious criticism lodged from even conservative Republican senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul against the Trump administration for its coercive tactics in pressuring Kimmel off the air. Earlier in the day that Kimmel was suspended, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr went on a podcast and threatened that ABC could “do this the easy way or the hard way” in terms of getting Kimmel, a vocal Trump critic, off the air.
Kimmel’s suspension resulted in protests by free speech advocates in front of his Hollywood studio and an ACLU letter decrying his removal signed by 400 celebrities. Perhaps in a sign of ABC’s thaw regarding the suspension, the hosts of “The View” discussed Kimmel’s removal for the first-time on-air today, with Whoopi Goldberg suggesting that their previous silence had been out of respect for Kimmel to make a statement first.
Local affiliate companies Nexstar and Sinclair had previously stated that they would no longer air “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — which in the case of Nexstar was thought to be a performative act of currying favor with the Trump DOJ because Nexstar wants to merge with fellow affiliate company Tegna. Sinclair has long had a conservative reputation, but their stated aim of airing a tribute show to Charlie Kirk in lieu of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” did not come to pass, with their affiliates airing “Celebrity Family Feud,” like most ABC affiliates, in the timeslot instead.
What Nexstar and Sinclair will do now that ABC has announced Kimmel will return is unclear.
Kimmel’s suspension amounts to only three episodes of his show being pulled: His September 17 and 18 installments (Friday September 19 would have been a repeat), and the episode that would have aired Monday September 22.