Jimmy Kimmel may be officially back, but that doesn’t mean many people will realize it.
The embattled late-night comedian is facing a nationwide blackout at the hands of Nexstar, one of ABC’s biggest broadcasters, which announced on Tuesday that it plans to run alternative programming when Kimmel’s show returns tonight.
The decision follows an earlier one by Sinclair, which manages nearly 40 regional ABC affiliates and promised to keep Kimmel off the air in response to his allegation that Charlie Kirk’s assassin is a fan of President Donald Trump.
“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,” a Nexstar spokesperson said in a statement.
“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. 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.”
With 39 ABC stations owned by Sinclair and 26 by Nexstar, the combined boycott is expected to keep Kimmel off more than one in four ABC affiliates across the country. The move comes as both broadcasters pursue a $6.2 billion merger in front of the Federal Communications Commission and its pro-Trump chair, Brendan Carr, who has previously spoken out against Kimmel’s criticism of the president.
At a summit on Monday, Carr maintained that his warning to Kimmel was not meant as a threat to the deal. He previously warned that ABC could do it “the easy way or the hard way” by addressing the host’s one-sided takes on the White House.
“What I spoke about last week is that when concerns are raised about news distortion … there’s an easy way for parties to address that and work that out. In the main, that takes place between local television stations that are licensed by the FCC and what we call national programmers like Disney. They work that out, and there doesn’t need to be any involvement of the FCC,” Carr insisted at the Concordia Summit in New York, per Deadline.
The suspension drew comparisons to the cancellation of “Late Night with Stephen Colbert,” which frequently featured jokes mocking President Trump and members of his administration. NBC executives blamed the termination of Colbert’s show on poor revenue, stating that it was losing $50 million annually.
Both Trump and Carr have singled out ABC and NBC for their “unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives.”
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