“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is set to return to ABC’s airwaves on Tuesday following the late night host’s suspension over comments made about Charlie Kirk’s assassin.
“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,” Disney said in a statement. “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.”
The decision comes after four days of talks between Disney leadership and Kimmel’s representatives. The crew of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was paid during the hiatus.
Kimmel was suspended indefinitely from ABC and their affiliate stations owned and operated by Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcasting on Sept. 17 for comments made in his monologue two days earlier.
“We 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,” he said at the time.
Nexstar and Sinclair had knocked the comments “offensive,” “inappropriate” and “deeply insensitive at a critical moment for our country.” After ABC suspended the host, Sinclair took things a step further, demanding an apology to the Kirk family, a donation to Turning Point USA and “formal discussions” with ABC regarding “the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.”
Kimmel was preparing to address the backlash during his show on Sept. 17, but Disney felt what he wanted to say “would have continued to enrage” conservatives. The two sides couldn’t come to an agreement on how to address the uproar in a way that brought the temperature down, and TheWrap was told that the situation became “unsafe” as Disney employees were fielding death threats.
But Disney has also faced pressure from the other side, with protests from writers and union members and over 400 artists signing an open letter from the American Civil Liberties Union slamming the decision to pull Kimmel. Some celebrities also called for the public to cancel their Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ subscriptions in the wake of the fallout.
Nexstar and Sinclair’s decision to pull Kimmel followed a warning from Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr that the agency would take action against Kimmel and Disney for the comments.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said, suggesting that the government had “remedies” if the network did not act. Those comments have since sparked criticism from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
Nexstar is notably looking to merge with rival Tegna in a $6.2 billion deal and Sinclair is exploring M&A opportunities for its broadcast business – both moves that would require FCC approval. The two companies have also been pushing the FCC to lift the 39% cap on broadcast TV station ownership, a rule Carr has called “arcane” and “artificial.” The agency’s review on the matter has been opened up for public comment and will be discussed during the FCC’s open committee meeting next week.
During Concordia’s 2025 Summit on Monday, Carr said Democrats were “completely misrepresenting” the work of the FCC and that allegations that he threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license if they didn’t fire Kimmel “did not happen in any way, shape or form.”
He added that he and the FCC “expressed no view” on the merits of complaints about Kimmel and that the FCC is trying to empower local TV stations to serve the needs of their local communities.
“You got national programmers, like Disney, like Comcast, like Paramount, that aren’t licensed by the FCC, that have no public interest obligation, and they provide a lot of the primetime shows that the licensed TV stations put out over the air. And what’s happened over the years is that those national programmers have exerted more and more control and pressure on the local TV stations,” he continued. “They don’t feel like they can push back on the national programmers, even when they think there’s some content that they don’t think in their judgment, not my judgment, makes sense for the local communities.”
He added that the agency wants “wide open, robust, uninhibited debate” on social media and cable, but argued broadcast TV is “just different.”
“It’s got a license. There’s a public interest standard, and Congress has called on the FCC to enforce that. And if people don’t like it, they can go to Congress and change the law, or they can turn their license in,” he concluded. “There are people that are interested in trying to create a narrative that simply, I don’t think exists.”
Representatives for the FCC, the White House, Nexstar and Sinclair did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
