Following Disney’s decision to resume airing new episodes of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” beginning Tuesday, TV station group owner Nexstar Media said it will continue to preempt the show.
Nexstar said in a statement Tuesday morning: “We made a decision last week to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s ‘ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse. We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.”
The company continued, “In the meantime, we note that ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ will be available nationwide on multiple Disney-owned streaming products, while our stations will focus on continuing to produce local news and other programming relevant to their respective markets.”
Nexstar operates 28 ABC-affiliated stations. Its decision comes after Sinclair, another big station group, announced Monday it will preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” across the 38 ABC local stations it operates beginning Tuesday, despite Disney’s end of the Kimmel suspension. “Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!‘ across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming,” a Sinclair representative said in a statement. “Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return.”
Nexstar and Sinclair’s refusal to air “Kimmel” means that just over one-fourth of ABC’s roughly 240 national stations will not carry the program for the time being. Together, the two station groups cover about 25% of the U.S. TV viewing audience.
Last week, Disney pulled Kimmel’s late-night show after Nexstar and Sinclair said they would not be airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC in their respective markets following the host’s on-air comments about the killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Disney, Nexstar and Sinclair’s initial decisions were made after FCC chair Brendan Carr suggested the agency would investigate “news distortion” complaints against ABC stations unless they pulled Kimmel off the air.
Following several days of discussion among top Disney brass, Disney announced Monday that Kimmel’s suspension had ended: “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. 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.”
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From Variety US