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Sinclair Broadcasting on Friday said it is returning "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" to its ABC stations, ending its preemption of the late-night show over remarks host Jimmy Kimmel had made on the program related to the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The show will air on its ABC affiliates tonight, Sinclair said in a statement. Sinclair owns 38 ABC stations across the U.S.Disney's ABC brought Kimmel's show back on Tuesday following a six-day suspension, but stations owned by Sinclair and Nexstar — about a quarter of the network's affiliates — had continued to air other programming in that time slot instead."Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience," Sinclair said in its statement. "We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming." Nexstar, which operates about 30 ABC affiliates, also preempted the show and has not yet indicated if and when it will return "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" to the air. The company didn't immediately return a request for comment.On Wednesday, Nextar said in a statement to CBS News that it "is continuing to evaluate the status of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live! on our ABC-affiliated local television stations, and the show will be preempted while we do so."Nextar added that it was engaged in "productive discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve."The show's Tuesday episode which aired on about three-quarters of ABC stations across the country, but was inaccessible to viewers in Sinclair and Nextar-controlled markets, still drew a broadcast audience of about four times larger than average. An estimated 6.26 million people tuned into the broadcast, Disney said in a statement Wednesday, citing numbers compiled by Nielsen, an audience measurement firm. The data does not include viewers who streamed the program online. Kimmel's show drew a nightly average of 1.42 million broadcast viewers during its 2024-25 season, a Disney spokesperson told CBS News.
