Jimmy Kimmel’s show is back because money talks louder than politics

Jimmy Kimmel’s show is now back. All the way back.

Nexstar and Sinclair — the two TV affiliate owners who had suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show on ABC — both ended those suspensions and aired Kimmel’s show Friday night. Both operators announced they would preempt Kimmel’s show on Sept. 17, the same day ABC announced it would suspend Kimmel.

ABC brought Kimmel’s show back last Tuesday, but Nexstar and Sinclair continued their suspension for another two days. The operators own nearly 25% of ABC affiliates.

Initially, Sinclair wanted Kimmel to apologize for remarks he made about the shooting of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, as well as “make a meaningful personal donation” to Turning Point USA, the nonprofit that Kirk founded. Kimmel didn’t do either, although he said on his return to the airways that “it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.”

In announcing that it was ending the boycott, Sinclair said, in part, in a statement, “Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience. We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming. Over the last week, we have received thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives.”

Nexstar, whose decision to put Kimmel back on came shortly after Sinclair, said in its statement, “We have had discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company and appreciate their constructive approach to addressing our concerns. 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.”

However, there was more at play here. This just wasn’t Sinclair and Nexstar deciding to end the boycott because they thought it was the right thing to do. As always in these situations, it was a business decision.

As The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki noted, “Sinclair and Nexstar may be potent media players, but they would have run into serious problems if they had preempted Kimmel’s show for an extended period of time. The terms of the contracts that affiliates sign with the networks are confidential, but they typically limit the number of times a station can refuse to air a network show. When a station violates its contract, a network can inflict both financial penalties and other problems by denying the station some of its programming. In ABC’s case, its most dire threat would have been to pull college football and ‘Monday Night Football' from Sinclair and Nexstar stations. That would be painful to local stations; football is perhaps the most valuable property they have.”

Boycotting the show might have earned them brownie points with President Donald Trump and Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr. This is especially true for Nexstar, which needs FCC approval eventually to complete a purchase of another major media company, Tegna. But, in this ever-changing world of viewers fleeing traditional TV for streaming services, the TV operators had to be careful to not alienate those customers angry about the boycott.

Surowiecki wrote, “When the stations continued the boycott this week, then, they turned a successful bluff into an overplayed hand, something they seem to have realized after only a few days. Whatever the benefits of appeasing the FCC and Donald Trump, the costs of rejecting Kimmel were soon going to be dwarfed by the costs of losing viewers. So they caved, called it a victory, and put the show back on the air.”

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Inside Disney’s decision

Meanwhile, we’re learning more about ABC’s decision to bring Kimmel back. What was interesting about his return is that his first monologue back didn’t have much contrition, and he certainly didn’t ease up on his mocking criticism of Trump and Carr. He also fiercely defended the First Amendment. While Kimmel did show empathy and condemned the shooting death of Kirk, the word that probably best described his monologue was defiant.

So what went into Disney’s decision to bring Kimmel back?

The first paragraph of a weekend story by The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Fritz, Joe Flint and Erich Schwartzel reveals a lot: “Bob Iger’s phone was buzzing. The message was clear: You made a mistake.”

The Disney CEO and many of the company’s top executives were told by the most powerful agencies in Hollywood that the industry’s top talent were considering not working with Disney. More than 400 celebrities — including acting A-listers such as Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks — signed a letter protesting Kimmel’s suspension.

What’s also interesting is that Iger has been silent throughout all of this.

The Journal wrote, “The fact that Iger — one of America’s most experienced CEOs who heads the best-known brand in entertainment and once flirted with running for president himself — has taken so much heat in silence speaks volumes about business leaders’ difficult position during the second Trump administration. In the face of a president eager to deploy the federal government against political enemies, most are keeping their heads down as they try to stay out of the Trump administration’s crosshairs.”

Disney general counsel Horacio Gutierrez told the Journal, “Both decisions — the pre-emption and the return — were our own independent, editorial decisions based on principle and were not influenced by external voices and pressures.”

Meanwhile, Semafor’s Max Tani reported last week that a group of Disney shareholders is demanding that the company turn over documents related to its decision to suspend Kimmel’s show. Tani reported that the letter gave Disney five days to respond, so that could come to a head this week.

Big week

Every week seems to be a chaotic week in Trump’s Washington, D.C. But this week features two meetings that are expected to bring plenty of news.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will lead a rare meeting in Quantico, Virginia. What is rare about it? It was called on very short notice with no stated reason and it will feature hundreds of the U.S. military’s generals and admirals. The Washington Post, which broke the story about the meeting, wrote that the short notice and hush-hush details have sown “confusion and alarm after the Trump administration’s firing of numerous senior leaders this year.”

Adding to the intrigue, Trump told NBC News in a phone call on Sunday that he will attend the meeting. Trump said, “It’s really just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily, talking about being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things. It’s just a good message. We have some great people coming in and it’s just an ‘esprit de corps.’ You know the expression ‘esprit de corps’? That’s all it’s about. We’re talking about what we’re doing, what they’re doing, and how we’re doing.”

Perhaps that’s true, but it still is highly unusual to gather so many critical personnel in one place at one time to talk about how well things are going. The Post wrote, “The event has also raised security concerns about having all the top leadership in one place, particularly given that Tuesday is the end of the fiscal year, and if the government shuts down, it could leave key personnel stranded from their units.”

Speaking of the possible government shutdown, that brings us to the other big meeting this week. Trump is scheduled to meet today with the four top congressional leaders at the White House. The meeting comes just ahead of the deadline to reach a deal to avoid a government shutdown on Wednesday.

Trump will meet with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York).

The New York Times’ Michael Gold wrote, “But even as leaders of both parties agreed to a meeting, it was unclear whether Mr. Trump intended to reach a bipartisan compromise or if he was summoning Democrats to press them to accept Republicans’ funding proposal.”

Gold added, “In an interview on CNN, Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday that the president was ‘always open to discussion.’ But when pressed on whether Mr. Trump intended to negotiate a deal, Mr. Johnson sidestepped the question and accused Democrats of holding government funds hostage for ‘partisan demands.’”

Schumer appeared on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC and said, “So far, they stonewalled and said, ‘We’re not discussing any of that.’ We’ll see if it changes.”

About today’s meeting, Schumer said, “If the president at this meeting is going to rant, and just yell at Democrats, and talk about all his alleged grievances, and say this, that, and the other thing, we won’t get anything done. But my hope is it’ll be a serious negotiation.”

Going dark

Awful Announcing is a superb sports media site. I often quote its writers in this newsletter and link to their stories. But over the weekend, they had a rather eye-opening nonsports media story. Sam Neumann noticed that CBS’s “60 Minutes” hasn’t posted anything on X since Feb. 19. Yet it continues to post regularly on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Bluesky.

Before Feb. 19, “60 Minutes” posted clips from its program consistently to its 1.2 million followers.

So did something happen? Newman wrote:

Just a few days before the account went silent, ‘60 Minutes’ ran a story about USAID being defunded. Towards the end of that segment, there was this commentary on Musk’s role in the decision:

“It was Musk who called USAID employees worms,” said Scott Pelley. “In a post, he gloated about feeding the agency into the ‘wood chipper.’ The world’s richest man cut off aid for the world’s poorest families. Musk spent nearly $250 million to get Trump and other Republicans elected.”

Within an hour of ‘60 Minutes’ posting the link to the whole piece online, Musk fired back: “60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. They deserve a long prison sentence.”

Following all that, “60 Minutes” tweeted for two days and then went silent on the platform.

Media tidbits

• Looks like another victory for Dominion Voting Systems. It’s The Washington Post’s Brianna Tucker and Andrew Jeong with “Dominion and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani settle defamation lawsuit.”
• Mediaite’s Jennifer Bowers Bahney with “Jake Tapper Smokes Speaker Johnson With a Brutal Dig About the Epstein Files in Tense CNN Interview.”
• The Wall Street Journal’s Lauren Thomas, Jessica Toonkel and Miriam Gottfried with “Videogame Giant Electronic Arts Nears Roughly $50 Billion Deal to Go Private.”
• And here’s The New York Times’ Lauren Hirsch and Mike Isaac with “Jared Kushner’s Firm Is Said to Be Part of $50 Billion Buyout of Electronic Arts.”

Hot type

• Powerful essay from Nikole Hannah-Jones for The New York Times Magazine: “What the Public Memory of Charlie Kirk Revealed.”
• The Washington Post’s Michael Andor Brodeur with “At 50, ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ still brings the misfits together.”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

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