Disney wanted to be done with politics. But politics wasn’t done with Disney.
It never is.
The debate over the future of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” became a full-blown crisis for Walt Disney Co., which owns the show’s broadcast network, ABC.
On Monday, the tale took a new turn. Kimmel is coming back, after all.
“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.”
Pressure mounted on Disney from all sides since its decision to take the late-night show off the air after threats from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr and a revolt of major station owners who objected to Kimmel’s comments about the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.
The Burbank giant and its chief executive, Bob Iger, found themselves in a no-win situation as they took heat from fans, free speech advocates, labor unions, elected officials, celebrities and countless podcasters and TV commentators, including some of ABC’s own.
The outspoken hosts of ABC’s talk show “The View” addressed the matter on Monday, with Whoopi Goldberg explaining that they’d kept silent until now to see whether Kimmel himself would comment. “Now, look, did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?” Goldberg said. “I mean, have you watched this show over the last 29 seasons? So you know no one silences us.”
Cohost Ana Navarro said that Kirk’s shooting death was “being used to silence people and cancel people.”
Protesters supporting Kimmel took to the streets in New York and Los Angeles, including a Monday rally on Hollywood Boulevard near where the show is taped. There have been reports of people dropping their Disney+ subscriptions, though those claims are difficult to substantiate or measure.
Meanwhile, Disney is still likely in the crosshairs of the FCC, which by all appearances is behaving as a representative of the Trump administration to put pressure on speakers it doesn’t like. Not to mention Trump himself, who has focused much ire specifically on late-night talk show hosts, declaring victory after Disney briefly sidelined Kimmel and after CBS announced “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” would end in May.
In his Sept. 15 monologue, Kimmel said MAGA types were “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.” The sloppily worded comment was interpreted by some as Kimmel saying that Tyler Robinson, the suspect in the Kirk shooting, was a Trump supporter.
As outrage ballooned on right-wing social media, the FCC’s Carr, who has been in lockstep with Trump on media-related issues, told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson on Wednesday that there would be additional work ahead for the agency if companies did not take action against Kimmel. “We can do it the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said.
Soon after Carr’s comments aired, Nexstar, a major owner of ABC affiliates, said it was dropping Kimmel’s show indefinitely. Then ABC went out with its own announcement that it was pulling the late-night program until further notice. Conservative-leaning Sinclair, another key station group, went a step further by calling on Kimmel to donate to Kirk’s family and his conservative advocacy group, Turning Point USA.
Sinclair said it would run news programming in the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” time slot. Nexstar has not yet said whether it will resume carrying the late-night show.
This all happened to come as TV station operators have significant business before the federal government.
They are desperate to consolidate in order to survive in the streaming era, and they need the FCC’s approval to merge. They need the agency to lift station ownership caps, which make it so no one entity can reach more than 39% of U.S. households. Nexstar is trying to close a $6.2-billion deal to acquire rival station group Tegna, which would require the FCC’s green light.
This gives Carr massive leverage. His unsubtle threat to use it was criticized by free speech advocates and even some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). After Disney pulled Kimmel’s show, Carr sent a celebratory GIF to CNN’s Brian Stelter.
Disney and ABC have been trying to avoid inflaming tensions with the government. The FCC previously announced a probe into the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices. Disney late last year agreed to pay $16 million to settle a Trump lawsuit over George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the then-president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
For years, Disney has been slammed by cultural conservatives for including queer-friendly elements in its programming, including in Pixar’s “Lightyear.” Iger in 2024 appeared to back away from putting messages in its movies and shows, saying the company’s mission was primarily to entertain. That, of course, hasn’t made the Burbank family entertainment giant any less of a target.
The Kimmel situation mirrors another controversial episode from recent Disney history over its response to Florida’s parental rights in education legislation, described by critics as a “Don’t Say Gay” law. At the time, it was Iger’s short-lived successor, Bob Chapek, whose missteps got the company in trouble with LGBTQ+ advocates and later, when Chapek eventually condemned the bill, with Gov. Ron DeSantis.
In contrast with Chapek’s initial silence, Iger condemned the education bill in a tweet.
This time it was another former Disney CEO who called out Iger.
“Where has all the leadership gone?” Michael Eisner, who preceded Iger’s first term, wrote Friday on X. “If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment?”
Disney had always wanted to find a path for Kimmel’s return.
Although late-night talk is dying as a format for linear TV, Kimmel remains important to Disney.
He’s hosted the Oscars and the Emmys for ABC, and he’s also emceed Disney’s upfront presentation to advertisers. In addition, he’s the current host of ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Nonetheless, he had a career before Disney, and he would have had one after, just as Howard Stern remained an influential public figure after his terrestrial radio days.
Now all eyes will be on Kimmel as he takes the stage to address his suspension for the first time.
Part of the reason Disney suspended Kimmel in the first place was because they couldn’t agree on how to handle the explosive reaction to the host’s initial comments. Iger and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden worried that what Kimmel wanted to say to viewers would only make matters worse.
Now he has to address it on TV, and those remarks will be analyzed within an inch of their lives.
Will it be enough to lower the temperature? Only a fool would try to predict.
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