Jimmy Kimmel at Jeff Ross’ “Take A Banana For The Ride” Broadway Opening Night held at Nederlander Theatre on August 18, 2025 in New York, New York.
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Nexstar Media Group, one of many largest house owners of broadcast TV stations, stated it could not air the return of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday.
The firm joins Sinclair, which stated Monday it did not plan to air the late night time present, and as a substitute would present different programming.
ABC father or mother Disney introduced on Monday it would bring back “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after pausing the show indefinitely last week following feedback by host Kimmel that linked the alleged killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to President Donald Trump’s MAGA motion.
Nexstar was among the many first to reply to Kimmel’s feedback.
“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,” Nexstar stated in a Tuesday assertion.
“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,” the corporate stated.
Nexstar and Sinclair are among the many largest broadcast TV station house owners within the U.S. The firms personal and function stations in native markets which are affiliated with main networks together with ABC, Fox, NBC and CBS.
Nexstar owns roughly 30 stations affiliated with ABC in markets together with Salt Lake City, Nashville and New Orleans. Sinclair owns and operates practically 40 ABC affiliate stations.
While the stations provide native content material, corresponding to dwell information, additionally they air nationwide programming affiliated with their community, together with dwell sports activities, late night time TV, nationwide information exhibits, and primetime sequence. The station house owners license spectrum from the federal government and the networks are free-to-air — that means shoppers can watch the networks without cost with an antenna.
Following Kimmel’s feedback final Monday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr suggested licenses were at risk of being revoked as stations and networks are required by legislation to operate in the “public interest.”
Carr said on CNBC last week that Kimmel’s feedback appeared to “directly mislead the American public about…probably one of the most significant political events we’ve had in a long time.”
During Kimmel’s opening monologue final Monday, Kimmel stated the “MAGA gang” was “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.”
“In between the finger-pointing there was grieving. On Friday the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level you can see how hard the president is taking this,” he continued, teeing up a clip of Trump on the White House garden during which the president fields a query on Kirk however swiftly pivots to speaking about development.
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