It’s the start of a new year for Jews across the world, with Rosh Hashanah starting at sundown and the annual Yom Kippur day of repentance coming October 2. For Jimmy Kimmel, apologies and absolving his sins could be a part of his unexpected and sudden return to “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday.
But, don’t expect any Sinclair-owned TV station to broadcast it.
In a post to social media platform X, the Baltimore-headquartered company said that “beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming. Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s return.”
This could cause a particular ripple in the company’s network agreement with The Walt Disney Company, which shared in the Noon hour, Pacific Time, the following statement:
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.
The announcement came after several days of nearly non-stop commentary from politicians on Capitol Hill, the head of the NAB, and esteemed legal community thought leaders. And, it comes after Sinclair Inc. stations abandoned their plan Friday to pre-empt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” with a self-produced tribute to the slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, the individual at the center of a firestorm regarding Kimmel, who made factless comments about Kirk in his September 15 monologue. The tribute broadcast was seen across the weekend on Sinclair stations; Sinclair’s ABC affiliates on Friday stuck with network programming put in place in lieu of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” possibly to abide by network affiliation accords between ABC and Sinclair.
Until ABC’s surprise announcement on Monday that the indefinite suspension was ending, Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group had each expressed their displeasure over Kimmel’s remarks, saying they would pre-empt the program. But, that was ahead of ABC’s suspension of the program “indefinitely.”
With that suspension over, it remains to be seen what the nation’s single-largest licensee of broadcast TV stations decides to do. What is clear is that viewers in Washington, D.C.; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Columbus and Dayton, Ohio; and Little Rock as well as tiny markets such as Eureka-Arcata, Calif., will be unable to tune to their local ABC affiliate to see Kimmel’s return.
Is RBR/TVBR saying Kimmel “made factless comments about Kirk in his September 15 monologue” or is that from Sinclair?
This is based on the conclusion that Kimmel labeled the suspected assassin of Charlie Kirk as a “MAGA” Republican aligned with supporters of President Trump. This is incorrect.
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