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Sinclair Narrowcasting
Preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live
Jimmy Is Back
ABC announced Kimmel’s return, following a strong backlash in the creative community and among others who said that The Walt Disney Company was capitulating to the Trump administration. That said, starting tonight (9–23–25), Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming. This will result in Kimmel being seen in some markets and not others.
Following comments Kimmel made during his last show, “We had 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 (the liberal left) and with everything they can to score political points from it.” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr followed, warning the network and its stations: “Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Monday morning, Carr denied he had threatened to pull licenses of ABC stations if they did not fire Kimmel. He said that “did not happen in any way, shape or form.” This is more like a page from Trump’s playbook where he bullies the target.
