On September 15, during a monologue on his show Jimmy Kimmel Live! (JKL) on ABC, late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made several comments about Tyler Robinson, the suspected killer of political agitator Charlie Kirk. According to Kimmel, “the MAGA Gang [was] 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… In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”
Two days later, during a podcast interview with conservative political YouTuber Benny Johnson, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr said that this comment from Kimmel was “the sickest conduct possible.” He also said “We can do this the easy way or the hard way… These companies can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Carr threatened that “We at the FCC are going to force the public interest obligation. There are broadcasters out there that don’t like it, they can turn in their license in to the FCC.”
ABC is a station that uses public broadcast airwaves. A handful of television companies and many radio stations use these, rather than private distribution methods, which requires a public broadcast license. Part of the FCC’s responsibility is to regulate these licenses to ensure recipients operate in the public interest, and they can (pursuant to certain regulations) revoke these licenses. However, according to the page “The Public and Broadcasting” on the FCC’s own website, “[t]he First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech similarly protects programming that stereotypes or may otherwise offend people with regard to their religion, race, national background, gender, or other characteristics… [and] protects broadcasts that criticize or ridicule established customs and institutions, including the government and its officials.” Essentially, humorous content is considered part of the public interest, even if offensive. The FCC also recommends that, if you find humorous content on public airwaves objectionable, you inform the station publishing the content of your concerns, rather than the FCC. This background (that humor is in the public interest) is why many political commentators say that the FCC had no case, and ABC would have easily won is this case went to court.
Not everyone at the FCC supported Carr’s decision. The FCC has a chair (Carr) who is in charge, but also several commissioners who are responsible for running it. Commissioner Anna Gomez has been vocal about this story. Between the podcast appearance and the decision from ABC, Gomez tweeted “An inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship and control… Th[e Trump a]dministration is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression.”
Despite this, between Carr’s appearance on Johnson’s podcast and Kimmel’s show that night, ABC chose to pre-empt JKL. Pre-empting a show is typically done for some types of emergency broadcasts, breaking news, or high-viewership television that can’t easily be forced into a certain time slot (for instance, if a sports game runs late). However, it just refers to the practice of replacing one television program for another. ABC said that JKL would be pre-empted indefinitely.
This resulted in backlash against ABC for caving to the FCC. The day after ABC announced they would pre-empt JKL, Gomez’s office released a press statement that the “FCC does not have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to police content or publish broadcasters for speech the government dislikes… [E]ven the threat to revoke a license is no small matter. It poses existential risk to the broadcaster, which by definition cannot exist without its license.”
A major boycott also started against ABC, and its parent company, Disney. People started to avoid Disney products, and in particular, cancel their Disney+ subscriptions. This put economic strain on the company, and on September 23, JKL returned to air on ABC.
However, Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcast Group continued to pre-empt JKL. Both are conservative media conglomerates who own large numbers of local stations, and Sinclair is known for being particularly controlling over those stations’ content. If you grew up with a “Terrorism Alert Desk” segment on your local news, that was probably a Sinclair station who was required to put that on, as they required of all local stations they owned. Both groups said that the suspension of JKL did not go far enough, with Nexstar saying that it “strongly objects” to the comments, and Sinclair said they would not resume broadcasting JKL “until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.” Sinclair also called on Kimmel to personally issue an apology to Kirk’s family and to make a donation to Turning Point USA, Kirk’s organization, though there are disputed reports about if this was one of Sinclair’s condition for resuming broadcast or an unrelated request. Three affected stations are in Illinois (two from Sinclair in Champaign and Springfield, and one from Nexstar in Rockford.) Kimmel noted during a show on September 25 that, despite restrictions on JKL still existing in over 60 ABC local stations across the US, his return show on September 23 was his second highest-rated show in 23 years in terms of viewership.
Some commentators have noted that Sinclair and Nexstar both have made bids to acquire Tegna, another local media conglomerate. This merger would require FCC approval, and transferring the ownership of a broadcast license is one of the easiest times to revoke it. Some have speculated that their continued pre-emption of Kimmel’s show might be a way to curry favor with Carr, to gain the approvals needed to purchase Tegna. This is especially notable in the case of Nexstar, who would need an additional approval to bypass the FCC cap on percentage of local stations owned (preventing a monopoly on the airwaves) if they wanted to buy Tegna. As far as I am aware, neither Sinclair nor Nexstar has publicly commented on the accuracy of these allegations.
However, on September 26, both groups announced the blackout was over, and they would resume showing JKL. Sinclair said that ABC and Disney did not accept their proposed changes Sinclair says would “strengthen accountability, viewer feedback, and community dialogue, including a network-wide independent ombudsman” (a type of regulator and reviewer), while Nexstar said that they “appreciate[d] their [Disney’s] constructive approach to addressing our concerns.” As of Monday, September 29 (two days after the submission of this article, so it is possible that this may change before then and not be accurate by publication), Jimmy Kimmel Live! is expected to be back on all ABC stations.