So, what does ABC do now?
On Wednesday, ABC and its corporate owner, Disney, showed no signs of spine. But the company was under extreme duress.
When the chairman of the FCC decided to use the flimsiest of pretexts to intimidate an ABC stations group — one in the midst of seeking government approval for expansion — ABC’s dilemma was set in motion.
The chairman, Brendan Carr, who’s been an aggressive agent for President Trump’s campaign against media he doesn’t like, was pressuring Nexstar, the station group, to take action against Jimmy Kimmel for what he claimed was some kind of offensive commentary relating to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
There was no such offensive commentary. Kimmel, on Monday night, made a comment about “the MAGA gang” attempting to distance themselves from the alleged shooter.
Kimmel also made a joke about Trump’s limp response to a question about how the president was handling the loss of a friend, when he quickly changed the subject to the new ballroom he’s building White House. Kimmel called that the “fourth stage of grief: construction.”
None of this diminished the abhorrent killing of Kirk. Kimmel himself personally issued a statement in the immediate wake of the assassination about about how dreadful this killing was, especially for the Kirk family.
But Nexstar was hardly going to quibble. The FCC chairman knew he had leverage against them with their need for government approval. What did they care about the fate of a late-night comedian? He doesn’t work for them.
He does work for ABC, and has for two decades. He has been literally the face of that network for some time now, as host of the Oscars and other ABC properties like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and a centerpiece every year of their annual sales presentation to advertisers.
Surely ABC would value this vital talent.
But ABC responded by instantly caving, taking Kimmel’s show off the air, and in the process handing Trump the opportunity to glory in his handiwork — which he did gleefully by declaring ABC had canceled the show. He cited both victims from his enemies list, Stephen Colbert and Kimmel, and at the same time openly urged NBC to dispose of Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
That would clear the broadcasting field of all the troublesome comics in late night exercising their First Amendment right to make fun of the President.
Though Saturday Night Live should watch its back.
As for The Daily Show, yes, it’s on a cable network and thus has no licenses to threaten. But it’s now owned by the same company that eased Colbert towards the exit.
Despite what Trump messaged last night, ABC has not officially canceled Kimmel. The phrase that was used was “preempted indefinitely.”
But now what?
ABC, of course, realizes that Trump and Carr will make good on the threat, which Carr stated openly and without any regret about his unabashed abuse of power in undermining the Bill of Rights, using terms Tony Soprano would have loved: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
If ABC decides to stand by Kimmel, the hard way may be financially excruciating. Already the other huge ABC station group, Sinclair Broadcasting, a famously hard-conservative group, leapt to support Carr’s and Trump’s bullying, issuing a statement Wednesday night that it would not carry Kimmel’s show no matter if ABC finds a way to return him to the air.
That would seem to leave ABC little leverage to stave off canceling Kimmel, though that would be widely seen as the most craven capitulation yet to an unjustifiable act of government intimidation.
Like most of the lawsuits Trump has filed against media companies — most recently The New York Times — this move is all about intimidation, not substance.
The lawsuits have been frivolous, especially the one CBS caved over, a 60 Minutes report during the 2024 election.
This one is in the same vein. Kimmel said absolutely nothing offensive about Charlie Kirk. He didn’t bring up any comments Kirk himself made, nor disparaged his efforts to influence young conservatives.
But he did make a joke about Trump, as conventional a joke about a presidential comment as can be made. Other late-night shows essentially did the exact same joke.
Somehow Carr interpreted this as “some of the sickest conduct possible.”
He was apparently not around when, in just one example, members of the Trump family and Fox News folk were suggesting merrily that the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband — a hammer assault to his head — was either a fraud or a gay tryst gone bad.
That might have scored some points on the “sick” scale.
Of course, neither Trump family members nor Fox News had worries about the FCC. First, because no previous commission leadership would ever threaten to pull a license over such an obvious free speech issue; but also because, in the case of Fox News, there is no license to pull.
Greg Gutfeld could make all the jokes he wanted about Joe Biden’s state of dementia, with absolute impunity.
And he should have every right to do that, even if he were on a broadcast channel instead of a cable channel. Just as Kimmel, Colbert, Fallon, Meyers, Letterman, Leno, and Carson always have.
Apparently until now.
ABC/Disney is in a brutal situation. This administration can inflict enormous damage to its bottom line if the company defies. It will have to weigh that against the value in defending the principle that the American government has no business dictating who gets to talk on television.
If the decision is surrender, much more will be lost than one more talented late-night host.
This story originally appeared on LateNighter. Get more pieces like this in your inbox: Sign up for LateNighter’s free daily newsletter.
