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Tag: Sinclair Broadcast Group

  • The Media Merger You Should Actually Care About

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    The congressional hearing at which Ruddy recently spoke was not your typical partisan food fight. Ted Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, and who won headlines last year for likening Carr’s comments about Kimmel to the language of a Mob boss, sounded distinctly unimpressed by the idea that the F.C.C. could simply override the will of Congress to change the ownership cap. But otherwise, he didn’t take an overt position on the merits of such a change; Steven Waldman, the founder of the media-policy group Rebuild Local News, who also testified, told me that Cruz’s opening remarks—in which he traced the history of broadcast media from “I Love Lucy” through our modern era of media fragmentation—were “almost journalistic” in their evenhandedness. Most of Cruz’s Democratic colleagues were nuanced, too. In Waldman’s testimony, he said that he sympathized, to an extent, with both proponents and critics of raising the cap—even if evidence shows that corporate mergers certainly do not guarantee greater investment in local journalism, as industry lobbyists have suggested.

    At one point, Waldman had a strikingly friendly exchange with Todd Young, a Republican senator from Indiana. Young’s statement “was among the most eloquent things I’ve heard recently on the importance of community media,” Waldman told me, adding that, in his experience, Republican politicians often have “a real sense for not just the accountability aspects of journalism but the community-cohesion aspects.” This mirrored another trend that I wrote about last year—of Republican lawmakers in certain states quietly pushing bills to help revive flagging local outlets, beneath the fray of their party’s national-level war on the mainstream media. Efforts to reinvigorate local journalism are often focussed on print media, but local TV news is more widely consumed—and generally more trusted than its national counterparts. (A surprising number of local-news anchors have used that trust as a springboard to launch political careers.)

    Swarztrauber claims that Carr, too, values local news. “There are people right now arguing that we should just shut down all broadcasters and sell their spectrum to wireless carriers,” he told me. “Carr’s not talking about that. He’s saying that there’s a public good here.” Certainly Carr has long talked about deregulating the airwaves, including in a chapter that he wrote for Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s infamous blueprint for a second Trump term, in which he advocated “eliminating many of the heavy-handed FCC regulations that were adopted in an era when every technology operated in a silo” and “creating a market-friendly regulatory environment.” (Swarztrauber recalled a trip Carr took to visit a radio station in Wyoming “that was a Dell laptop essentially playing music,” and yet couldn’t merge with a local news outlet owing to ownership rules.) After Trump returned to office, the F.C.C. invited comment on all agency regulations as part of an initiative titled “In re: Delete, Delete, Delete.” Last week, I tuned in to the agency’s monthly open meeting, and the agenda sounded conventional, technical (“Proposing Application Limit in Upcoming NCE Reserved Band FM Translator Filing Window,” anyone?), and, at least to my untrained ear, dull.

    Carr’s most attention-grabbing maneuvers, however, have been anything but. Since taking over the F.C.C., he has revived and reinterpreted regulations, or weaponized the threat thereof, in ways that have bent the arc of broadcast TV toward Trump, or sought to—not least in the Kimmel case. At a glance, then, his approach appears to be inconsistent. But a coherent project comes into view if you see his primary currency as leverage, over beneficiaries and targets alike. Craig Aaron, the co-C.E.O. of Free Press, a media-advocacy group that strongly opposes lifting the ownership cap, told me that the divergent strands of Carr’s approach are best understood “less as a contradiction and more as a merger.” The F.C.C. did not respond to my e-mail inviting Carr to comment, but he has described ending the ownership cap not only in free-market terms but as a means to “empower” smaller competitors to stand up to the major networks whose programming they carry, such that next time, perhaps, they have the leverage to keep a Kimmel off air permanently. (In the fall, Nexstar and Sinclair ended up reinstating his show, following talks with Disney, which owns ABC.) More overtly, Carr told the Times Magazine that a “realignment” is under way in how right-wingers conceive of using government power to achieve their objectives. “Conservatives have complained about media bias forever,” he said. “We’ve always relied on the idea that the free market would address it.” But “this sort of libertarian free-market answer isn’t working.”

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    Jon Allsop

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  • Jimmy Kimmel explains how he learned he was being yanked off the air — and thought he’d never return

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    When ABC executives told Jimmy Kimmel last month that his show was being pulled off the air, the late-night show’s audience was seated, a guest chef had already started making food, the musical guest had performed a warm-up act, and Kimmel was in the bathroom.”It was about 3:00; we tape our show at 4:30,” Kimmel told Stephen Colbert on an episode of “The Late Show” Tuesday. “I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual: They, as far as I knew, didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this.”Kimmel said he had five writers in his office at the time, and the only private place where he could take the call was the bathroom.”So I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives. and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.’”The audience booed, and Kimmel joked: “That’s what I said: I started booing.””I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ Then there was a vote, and I lost the vote.”Kimmel said he called some of the show’s executive producers into his office to share the news, and he turned white.”I thought, that’s it. It’s over, it’s over. I was like, I’m never coming back on the air.”Kimmel said the show had to send the seated audience home. Chef Christian Petroni’s prepared meatballs and polenta that he had been cooking before the taping went to waste. Future musical guest Howard Jones, however, taped a song for a future episode: “Things Can Only Get Better,” which Kimmel acknowledged was ironic.ABC suspended Kimmel’s show in mid-September for a few days after a controversial monologue that mentioned Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer – and the right-wing reaction to Kirk’s murder. Two days later, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, on a conservative podcast, threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses in response. Then Nexstar — the station group which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in approximately two dozen markets — announced they would not air the show. Another affiliate, Sinclair, followed suit. And hours later, Kimmel took ABC executives’ call in the bathroom.Kimmel returned to the air the following Tuesday with an emotional monologue — and mega-ratings.Colbert couldn’t get the line outColbert, who also appeared as a guest on Brooklyn taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, said he could empathize with Kimmel. The CBS star said executives had made the decision to end his show while Colbert was on vacation. His manager, James Dixon, whom he shares with Kimmel, waited until Colbert returned to share the news.Recounting his desire to tell his audience about the news immediately — despite the fact that “Late Night” is set to run through the spring of 2026 — Colbert told Kimmel that at the end of the following show, he asked his audience to remain in their seats for one more segment. But he had trouble delivering his lines and flubbed the line — twice.”I was so nervous about doing it right, ’cause there was nothing in the prompter. I was just speaking off the cuff,” Colbert said. “They started going, ‘Come on Stephen, you can do it,” because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them what’s happening, and they didn’t laugh.”Although CBS owner Paramount said the cancellation of “The Late Show” was strictly a business decision, many media critics — and Kimmel — questioned that rationale, and some have said it was likely a political decision to appease the Trump administration that needed to approve Paramount’s merger with Skydance.Both Colbert and Kimmel have been frequent and unabashed critics of President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump publicly celebrated when Colbert was canceled, saying in a social media post that Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers were “next.” Trump again celebrated when Kimmel was pulled off the air but criticized — and threatened — ABC when it brought him back on.Meyers made an appearance on Kimmel’s show Tuesday, and the three late night hosts posed for a photograph posted to Instagram. Kimmel added the caption: “Hi Donald!”Kimmel joked with Colbert that Tuesday’s taping was, “The show the FCC doesn’t want you to see.” He introduced Colbert as, “The Emmy-winning late-night talk show host who, thanks to the Trump administration, is now available for a limited-time only.”Kimmel quipped that he was “so honored to be here with my fellow no-talent, late-night loser.” As for the rationale for inviting Colbert onto his program: “We thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts.”

    CNN —

    When ABC executives told Jimmy Kimmel last month that his show was being pulled off the air, the late-night show’s audience was seated, a guest chef had already started making food, the musical guest had performed a warm-up act, and Kimmel was in the bathroom.

    “It was about 3:00; we tape our show at 4:30,” Kimmel told Stephen Colbert on an episode of “The Late Show” Tuesday. “I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual: They, as far as I knew, didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this.”

    Kimmel said he had five writers in his office at the time, and the only private place where he could take the call was the bathroom.

    “So I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives. and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.’”

    The audience booed, and Kimmel joked: “That’s what I said: I started booing.”

    “I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ Then there was a vote, and I lost the vote.”

    Kimmel said he called some of the show’s executive producers into his office to share the news, and he turned white.

    “I thought, that’s it. It’s over, it’s over. I was like, I’m never coming back on the air.”

    Kimmel said the show had to send the seated audience home. Chef Christian Petroni’s prepared meatballs and polenta that he had been cooking before the taping went to waste. Future musical guest Howard Jones, however, taped a song for a future episode: “Things Can Only Get Better,” which Kimmel acknowledged was ironic.

    ABC suspended Kimmel’s show in mid-September for a few days after a controversial monologue that mentioned Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer – and the right-wing reaction to Kirk’s murder. Two days later, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, on a conservative podcast, threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses in response. Then Nexstar — the station group which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in approximately two dozen markets — announced they would not air the show. Another affiliate, Sinclair, followed suit. And hours later, Kimmel took ABC executives’ call in the bathroom.

    Kimmel returned to the air the following Tuesday with an emotional monologue — and mega-ratings.

    Colbert couldn’t get the line out

    Colbert, who also appeared as a guest on Brooklyn taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, said he could empathize with Kimmel. The CBS star said executives had made the decision to end his show while Colbert was on vacation. His manager, James Dixon, whom he shares with Kimmel, waited until Colbert returned to share the news.

    Recounting his desire to tell his audience about the news immediately — despite the fact that “Late Night” is set to run through the spring of 2026 — Colbert told Kimmel that at the end of the following show, he asked his audience to remain in their seats for one more segment. But he had trouble delivering his lines and flubbed the line — twice.

    “I was so nervous about doing it right, ’cause there was nothing in the prompter. I was just speaking off the cuff,” Colbert said. “They started going, ‘Come on Stephen, you can do it,” because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them what’s happening, and they didn’t laugh.”

    Although CBS owner Paramount said the cancellation of “The Late Show” was strictly a business decision, many media critics — and Kimmel — questioned that rationale, and some have said it was likely a political decision to appease the Trump administration that needed to approve Paramount’s merger with Skydance.

    Both Colbert and Kimmel have been frequent and unabashed critics of President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump publicly celebrated when Colbert was canceled, saying in a social media post that Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers were “next.” Trump again celebrated when Kimmel was pulled off the air but criticized — and threatened — ABC when it brought him back on.

    Meyers made an appearance on Kimmel’s show Tuesday, and the three late night hosts posed for a photograph posted to Instagram. Kimmel added the caption: “Hi Donald!”

    Kimmel joked with Colbert that Tuesday’s taping was, “The show the FCC doesn’t want you to see.” He introduced Colbert as, “The Emmy-winning late-night talk show host who, thanks to the Trump administration, is now available for a limited-time only.”

    Kimmel quipped that he was “so honored to be here with my fellow no-talent, late-night loser.” As for the rationale for inviting Colbert onto his program: “We thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts.”

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  • Nexstar and Sinclair are bringing back Kimmel, but many viewers may have found alternatives while he was blacked out | Fortune

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    Nexstar joined Sinclair on Friday in calling off its Jimmy Kimmel boycott just days after ABC returned the comedian to late-night television. 

    Beginning Friday night, Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to air on the ABC affiliates, which had preempted the show last week over remarks he made about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 

    “As a local broadcaster, Nexstar remains committed to protecting the First Amendment while producing and airing local and national news that is fact-based and unbiased and, above all, broadcasting content that is in the best interest of the communities we serve,” a Nexstar statement said.  “We stand apart from cable television, monolithic streaming services, and national networks in our commitment–and obligation–to be stewards of the public airwaves.”

    Similarly, Sinclair issued a statement earlier on Friday reversing its decision to keep the comedian off its airwaves.

    It cited “feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives.”

    Sinclair had previously vowed not to put Kimmel back on air unless meetings were held with ABC to discuss the network’s “commitmentment to professionalism and accountability.”

    Those discussions are still ongoing, though ABC and Disney have not yet accepted any measures proposed by Sinclair, which included a network-wide independent ombudsman, per the company’s Friday release.

    The stand-down comes days after Kimmel’s first episode back on air had the highest ratings for a regularly scheduled episode in over a decade. His monologue at the top of the show ranged from the First Amendment and the Trump administration to Erica Kirk’s speech at her late husband’s memorial, garnering over 21 million views on YouTube in just a couple days—the most for a monologue in his show’s history.

    Kimmel’s comeback on Tuesday drew 6.3 million TV viewers, about four times the show’s average, despite nearly a quarter of ABC’s national reach blacking out his return episode. Sixty-six local stations owned by the ABC affiliates did not broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but this cost them a natural influx of viewership, and possibly some of their market, according to media experts.

    “Blackouts like this often highlight the strength of digital platforms,” Natalie Andreas, a communications professor at the University of Texas, told Fortune. 

    Instead of limiting reach, blackouts push viewers toward spaces like YouTube where content spreads faster, lingers longer, and attracts new audiences who may not have tuned in live, she said.

    Susan Keith, a professor in the Rutgers School of Communication and Information, told Fortune the blackouts can push viewers to seek—and easily find—Kimmel on their digital cable packages or YouTube if local stations didn’t air the show.

    “There’s this idea of public interest, necessity and convenience that over-the-air broadcast media were supposed to fulfill,” she said. “So if we all move to streaming services for content because (of) incidents like this one,” it trains viewers to seek media this way.

    Earlier this year, streaming overtook cable and broadcast as America’s most-watched form of TV, according to Nielsen data. 

    The FCC does not license TV or radio networks such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox, but rather individual stations that may air programming from these networks. But the shift to streaming has raised questions about what its continued role might be as viewers lean away from individual broadcast stations. 

    “I think this is an open question,” Keith said. “I think we don’t really know what to think about the ultimate usefulness of the FCC.”

    Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.

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    Nino Paoli

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  • Sinclair says it’s bringing back “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” tonight, ending late-night show’s preemption

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    Sinclair on Friday said it is returning “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to its ABC stations, ending the preemption of the late-night show over over remarks host Jimmy Kimmel had made on the show in response to the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. 

    The show will air on its ABC affiliates tonight, Sinclair said in a Friday statement on social media.

    “Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” the statement said.

    —This is breaking news and will be updated.

    Megan Cerullo

    Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Back on ABC: When, Where and How to Watch

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    Jimmy Kimmel Live! was taken off air last week after the host’s comments about the Make America Great Again movement and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk sparked outrage.

    Disney has now announced that the late-night show is returning to air on Tuesday, ending a suspension that had ignited national debates over free speech and political pressure on the media.

    What Did Jimmy Kimmel Say About Charlie Kirk? 

    In his September 15 monologue, Jimmy Kimmel said the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points from Kirk’s death and were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

    He also mocked President Donald Trump’s response to a question about how he was doing in the wake of Kirk’s killing, in which the president responded by talking about construction happening at the White House.

    “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish,” Kimmel said. 

    Why Did ABC Reinstate Jimmy Kimmel? 

    On Monday, ABC’s parent company, Disney, said it had come to the decision to reinstate the show following “thoughtful conversations” with Kimmel.

    “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 the 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.” 

    Who Owns Sinclair Broadcast Group? 

    Sinclair Broadcast Group, a publicly traded company controlled in part by the Smith family—with David D. Smith as executive chairman—has historically leaned conservative.

    While Disney has decided to put Kimmel back on air, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which controls many ABC affiliates, has said it will preempt the show, meaning it will block it and air its own programming instead.

    The company called on Kimmel to apologize and make a donation to Kirk’s conservative youth organization, Turning Point USA.

    What Time Is ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’? 

    Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC and returns on Tuesday.

    Where Can I Watch ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’? 

    The show is set to air on ABC stations nationwide. 

    However, Sinclair Broadcast Group has said it will preempt the program on its affiliates and instead air news programming in the slot.

    This means viewers in markets with Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates won’t be able to watch the show on their local channels.

    Nexstar, another major owner of ABC affiliates that previously objected to Kimmel’s comments about Kirk, has not confirmed whether it will air the returned show.

    Who Is Jimmy Kimmel‘s First Guest Back?

    It is not clear who Kimmel’s first guest back will be. 

    The show’s website, which ordinarily lists the upcoming interviewees and musical guests for the week, has not been updated since the news that the show was returning.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel’s show set to return on Tuesday

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    (CNN) — “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will return to air on ABC on Tuesday night, the network announced in a statement.

    “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,” a spokesperson for the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, said in a statement to CNN. “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.”

    “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was abruptly and indefinitely taken off the air last week after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr and networks of affiliate stations owned by Sinclair and Nexstar threatened ABC over comments Kimmel made in a monologue about the MAGA movement’s response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

    The move sparked a national debate about government interference and freedom speech between supporters of President Donald Trump’s administration and Kimmel, who have been vocally critically of each other over the years.

    Before news of his pending return on Monday, more than 400 artists, including Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Aniston, signed an open letter, organized by the ACLU, in support of Kimmel.

    There were organized protests against Disney outside of the company’s offices in New York and Burbank, California over the past week, as well as outside the theater where Kimmel’s show is recorded in Hollywood.

    Media analysts have watched as Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden have navigated competing pressures. Disney needs government approval for pending deals like ESPN’s pact with the NFL, while many of its station partners are in the same boat. Additionally, Kimmel’s contract is expiring in May and late-night TV audiences and revenue have been on decline.

    Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet is keeping the pressure on station owners: “Disney and ABC caving and allowing Kimmel back on the air is not surprising, but it’s their mistake to make. Nextstar and Sinclair do not have to make the same choice.”

    Still, Kimmel’s sudden suspension sent shock waves through the entertainment industry, where the comedian and long-time host is well-regarded, both inside and outside ABC.

    His show employs between 200 and 250 people. During the WGA strike, which shut down Hollywood productions in 2023, Kimmel provided funds for his crew when production on his show was halted. When production was shut down again during wildfires in Los Angeles early this year, the show’s backlot was used as a donation center to collect and distribute resources to those impacted by the disaster.

    Kimmel has not yet publicly commented on the controversy, but presumably will on his show Tuesday night.

    CNN has reached out to representatives of the late-night host, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar for comment.

    Editor’s note: CNN’s David Goldman and Lisa Respers France contributed to this story.

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    Elizabeth Wagmeister, Brian Stelter and CNN

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  • ABC yanks Jimmy Kimmel’s show ‘indefinitely’ after threat from Trump’s FCC chair

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    (CNN) — Disney’s ABC is taking Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show off the air indefinitely amid a controversy over his recent comments about Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer.

    “Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pre-empted indefinitely,” an ABC spokesperson said, declining to share any further details.

    A representative for Kimmel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The stunning decision came just a few hours after the Trump administration official responsible for licensing ABC’s local stations publicly pressured the company to punish Kimmel.

    At least two major owners of ABC-affiliated stations subsequently said they would preempt Kimmel’s show, sparking speculation that the owners were trying to curry favor with the administration. The local media conglomerates are each seeking mergers that would require administration approval.

    As Kimmel prepared to tape Wednesday night’s episode in Hollywood, ABC decided to pull the plug, much to the astonishment of the entertainment industry.

    Free speech and free expression groups immediately condemned ABC, calling the suspension cowardly, while President Trump, who frequently sparred with Kimmel, celebrated all the way from the UK, where he is on a state visit.

    “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “That leaves Jimmy (Fallon) and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”

    The indefinite hiatus underscores how politicized opinions and comments around the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk have become, with high-profile campaigns urging employers to fire people who make comments perceived as unflattering about Kirk.

    And the president has also gone after media companies, specifically, when they displease him, as with a $15 billion defamation lawsuit he filed against the New York Times this week and lawsuits against other outlets.

    During his Monday evening monologue, Kimmel said the MAGA movement was trying to score political points by trying to prove that Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, was not one of its own.

    “The MAGA Gang (is) 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,” Kimmel said. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

    The ABC late-night host’s remarks constituted “the sickest conduct possible,” FCC chair Brendan Carr told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on Wednesday. Carr suggested his FCC could move to revoke ABC affiliate licenses as a way to force Disney to punish Kimmel.

    “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

    And speaking on Fox Wednesday night, Carr suggested broadcasters would see more of this kind of pressure in the future.

    “We at the FCC are going to force the public interest obligation. There are broadcasters out there that don’t like it, they can turn in their license in to the FCC,” Carr said. “But that’s our job. Again, we’re making some progress now.”

    But Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner at the FCC, wrote on X that while “an inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship and control,” the Trump administration “is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression.”

    Speaking with CNN’s Erin Burnett after Kimmel’s show was taken off the air, Gomez said “the First Amendment does not allow us, the FCC, to tell broadcasters what they can broadcast.”

    “I saw the clip. He did not make any unfounded claims, but he did make a joke, one that others may even find crude, but that is neither illegal nor grounds for companies to capitulate to this administration in ways that violate the First Amendment,” Gomez told CNN. “This sets a dangerous new precedent, and companies must stand firm against any efforts to trade away First Amendment freedom.”

    Pro-Trump websites and TV shows began to criticize Kimmel for his remarks on Tuesday, and as the story gained traction on Wednesday, some owners of ABC-affiliated stations felt compelled to speak out.

    Local broadcasters get involved

    Nexstar, which operates about two dozen ABC affiliates, issued a press release saying it “strongly objects” to Kimmel’s remarks and saying its stations would “replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”

    Notably, Nexstar is seeking Trump administration approval to acquire another big US station group, Tegna. The deal requires the FCC to loosen the government’s limits on broadcast station ownership.

    Minutes after Nexstar criticized Kimmel publicly, ABC said the show was being yanked nationwide.

    Later in the evening, another big station group, Sinclair, said it had also told ABC that it was preempting Kimmel’s show on its ABC-affiliated stations before the network announced its nationwide decision.

    Sinclair, too, has business pending before the Trump administration, and it made a bid for Tegna a day before Nexstar stepped in with its bid. The company announced Wednesday night that it will air a one-hour special tribute to Kirk on Friday night in Kimmel’s usual time slot.

    Following ABC’s action to indefinitely pull Kimmel’s show off the air, Sinclair issued a statement saying the late-night host’s suspension “is not enough” and called on the network, the FCC and Kimmel to go further.

    “Sinclair will not lift the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on our stations until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability,” the company said in its statement. “Regardless of ABC’s plans for the future of the program, Sinclair intends not to return Jimmy Kimmel Live! to our air until we are confident that appropriate steps have been taken to uphold the standards expected of a national broadcast platform.”

    Sinclair said it demanded Kimmel directly apologize to the Kirk family and make a “meaningful” donation to Kirk’s family and his organization, Turning Point USA.

    The FCC’s role

    The FCC regulates the public airwaves, including broadcast signals and content. Before Trump appointed Carr to lead the agency, the FCC, for the most part, had taken a hands-off approach to broadcasters’ political content in recent years.

    But Carr has taken a broader view of the FCC’s remit to serve the public interest, and has served as a political attack dog for Trump, threatening his perceived enemies in the broadcast media.

    “I can’t imagine another time when we’ve had local broadcasters tell a national programmer like Disney that your content no longer meets the needs and the values of our community,” Carr told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday. “So this is an important turning point.”

    The Center for American Rights, which has previously lodged bias complaints against NBC, ABC and CBS, on Wednesday filed a complaint with the FCC over Kimmel’s comments, writing that “it is no defense to say that Kimmel was engaging in satire or late-night comedy rather than traditional news.”

    “ABC’s affiliates need to step up and hold ABC accountable as a network for passing through material that fails to respect the public-interest standard to which they are held,” Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights, wrote in the complaint. “Disney as ABC’s corporate owner needs to act directly to correct this problem.”

    SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, said Wednesday night that it “condemns” the suspension of Kimmel’s show.

    “Our society depends on freedom of expression. Suppression of free speech and retaliation for speaking out on significant issues of public concern run counter to the fundamental rights we all rely on,” the union said in its statement.

    “The decision to suspend airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! is the type of suppression and retaliation that endangers everyone’s freedoms.”

    Kimmel has also been a frequent target of President Trump’s ire. Shortly after CBS announced the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show — a move Carr publicly celebrated — Trump suggested that “Next up will be an even less talented Jimmy Kimmel.”

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    Elizabeth Wagmeister, Liam Reilly and CNN

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