JIMMY Kimmel’s late-night television show has been taken off the air “indefinitely” after the host was criticised for comments about the motives behind the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, US network ABC said on Wednesday (Sep 17).
The stunning decision to suspend one of the most popular and influential late-night shows comes as US President Donald Trump has widened his legal attacks on media organisations that he accuses of bias against him.
It was immediately welcomed by Trump, who hailed it as “great news for America”.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live will be preempted indefinitely,” an ABC spokesperson told AFP, using a television industry term for when a show is replaced or removed from the schedule.
Kirk, a close Trump ally, was shot dead last week while speaking on a Utah university campus. Authorities said 22-year-old Tyler Robinson used a rifle to shoot Kirk. He has been charged with murder.
On Monday, Kimmel spoke about the shooting in his late-night show’s monologue.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
“We had some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it,” said Kimmel, refering to the president’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, then openly threatened the license of ABC affiliates who broadcast Kimmel’s show, a move Democratic lawmakers and other critics quickly decried as an abuse of government power against constitutionally protected free speech.
The White House this week said it would be pursuing an alleged left-wing “domestic terror movement” in the wake of Kirk’s killing, prompting alarm that such a campaign could be used to silence political dissent.
SEE ALSO
ABC’s decision came shortly after Nexstar – one of the country’s biggest owners of ABC affiliate stations – said it would not broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live for “the foreseeable future.”
In a statement, Nexstar broadcasting president Andrew Alford said the company “strongly objects” to Kimmel’s comments.
“Kimmel’s comments about the death of Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” he said.
“Continuing to give Mr Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time.”
Kimmel did not immediately comment, and representatives for the entertainer did not respond to AFP queries.
Democratic lawmakers though were quickly crying foul.
“President Trump and FCC Chair Carr made it clear: fall in line or be silenced,” Senator Ben Ray Lujan posted on X.
Possible ‘license revocation’
Trump, who has long fumed about the late-night hosts who mercilessly mock him, was ebullient.
“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Rival broadcaster CBS said in July it was cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, days after the comedian blasted parent company Paramount’s US$16 million settlement with Trump as “a big fat bribe.”
Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, both on NBC, are now the only remaining major network late-night hosts in a genre that once ruled the roost.
The decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! followed the startling threat by Carr, a fierce Trump partisan.
“I think it’s past time these (affiliates) themselves push back on Comcast and this and say, ‘Listen, we’re not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we’re running the possibility of license revocation from the FCC’,” he told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson.
Carr, whose role is to oversee broadcasters, seemingly confused Comcast, which owns NBC Universal, with Disney, which owns ABC.
Since his return to the White House, the president has repeatedly badmouthed journalists critical of his administration, restricting access and bringing lawsuits demanding huge compensation – including a US$15 billion defamation suit against the New York Times.
While broad constitutional protections exist for US media, Trump has found success in lawsuits brought against news organisations, winning multi-million-dollar settlements from Disney-owned ABC and Paramount-owned CBS.
The settlements in those cases – which are to be paid to Trump’s future presidential library – were seen as being motivated by the desire of the news organisations’ parent companies to stay in Trump’s good graces. AFP
