While the entertainment world stands behind Jimmy Kimmel after ABC abruptly set his late night show at the behest of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, Stay urgent questions about his immediate future at the broadcaster. Above all: whether the planned stay of the show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which was to be broadcast from September 29 to October 3, will actually take place.
Political pressure and transmitter decisions
Sources from the environment of production told Rolling Stone that truck should start from Los Angeles on September 19 with the stage setup of the show in order to cover the long way to New York. The laying of the show for five days is an expensive undertaking: over $ 5 million, according to an industry insider. Video recordings that show members of Kimmels Hollywood crew when packing equipment appeared yesterday on social media-and strengthened the confusion and speculation (Margo Price Kimmel’s last guest at all?) (Representatives of ABC and Kimmel did not respond to inquiries about comments.)
Kimmel’s future at ABC fell on Wednesday when the station abruptly pulled off the show after there was conservative protest about a joke that the moderator had done in a recent monologue about the alleged perpetrator in the murder Charlie Kirk. In an interview with the conservative Podcaster Benny Johnson, Carr said that “licensed broadcasters” were supposed to act against ABC’s parent company Disney and treat Kimmel “pre -fold”.
“We can do it on the light or hard tour,” continued Carr. “These companies can find ways to change their behavior and, frankly, to take against Kimmel, or there will be additional work for the FCC.”
Internal processes and avoidable errors
Shortly afterwards, Nexstar and Sinclair-two media conglomerate, which have ABC-Affiliates nationwide, announced not to radiate Kimmel. (As has been reported, Nexstar is currently trying to enforce a 6.2 billion dollar fusion with Tegna, which requires the approval of the FCC.) ABC made the decision to take the show shortly afterwards.
The Brooklyn appearance is of particular importance for Kimmel because it was born in the district and spent his early childhood. In fact, Kimmel has organized series on the BAM seven times since 2012, and this year he has booked a full line-up to guests (including the Late Night veteran Stephen Colbert, which was also battered).
“New York is Jimmy’s hometown and Brooklyn has always been an energetic audience for the show,” says a source that classifies ABC’s decision as particularly shocking, since Kimmel and Disney boss Bob Iger are “very tight”.
Disney under pressure from affiliates and advertising customers
The course of the events indicates that there were several opportunities for the station to identify comments in the monologue that could have been offensive. Kimmel is involved in every aspect of show production, from finding ideas to delivery, says the source, but there are logs in which numerous people could have requested changes or deletions. The department for send standards could, and often do it, intervene in the writing phase and demand that a joke will be completely canceled. And since the show is not live (despite its title) but at 4 p.m. Pacific period, there is enough time to make adjustments before it is broadcast three hours later.
“It goes through many hands,” says the insider, who adds that such cuts “for everyone [Late-Night]-Show ”can be carried out regularly.
A possible explanation of how the remark of the examination escaped is that it was actually quite harmless. Kimmel’s exact words were: “We reached new low points at the weekend when the Maga gang tried desperately to present this boy who murdered Charlie Kirk as something other than one of them, and did everything to make political capital.”
Kimmel defends himself against it back
Fox News interpreted these comments so that Kimmel suggested that the “Kirk shooter was part of the Maga gang”. Carr, in turn, didn’t just jump on this train; The FCC boss was his master of ceremonies.
However, the usual processes were also made more difficult by the fact that ABC does not have a dedicated late night executive. Instead, Kimmel reports to the EPP for unscripted and alternative entertainment of the station, which looks after many shows. “It is such a fighting service,” says the insider.
As Rolling Stone already reported, ABC, the owner Disney and the affiliates on the day of the decision to break off Kimmel stopped several emergency meetings to limit the damage. Two sources confidante with the matter report that several managers believed that Kimmel had said nothing really inappropriate, but the threat of retaliation measures on the part of the Trump administration floated above everything.
“They made themselves in their pants all day,” said an ABC insider to the Rolling Stone.
As reported elsewhere, Disney received calls from concerned advertisers in addition to the threats of affiliate owners. Disney employees even reported that they were covered with poxxx or with death threats, according to The Hollywood Reporter. When ABC learned that around 66 out of around 200 affiliates were not ready to radiate Kimmel on Wednesday, Iger and Disney’s TV leader Dana Walden made the decision to take the show. Walden is said to have personally delivered the message.
Earlier conflicts with Disney
When the decision was made on Wednesday to take Kimmel, the existing protocol stipulated that ABC was supposed to send an approved episode of the show as a repetition. Thereupon an employee is said to have jokingly said: “Why don’t we just send yesterday’s show?”
But supposedly came from the headquarters to radiate Celebrity Family Feud instead. “Nobody was discussed,” claims the source.
On Thursday, Kimmel and his representatives reportedly met Disney managers, including Walden, to discuss the controversy, but a solution was not found. According to Puck, Kimmel stated his wish to give an explanation that would make it clear that he had never believed that Kirk’s suspected murderer was Maga, who would also attack Fox News and other conservatives, who, in his opinion, would have sparked his original comments.
Sources at Disney said media such as Puck and Thr said that Kimmel’s proposal “does not improve the situation” and “the flames of the Maga base”. A source of Kimmel-close to THER replied that he did not make the matter “worse”, but insisted that he “not” kinking “before the turmoil.
“All kill in China”, whereupon Kimmel replied: “Okay, that’s an interesting idea”
The decisions of Nexstar and ABC to silence Kimmel because of relatively harmless comments are the latest signs of how anxiously large corporations and media companies have become compared to the second Trump administration. The president and his confidants have made it clear that they are willing to use the full weight of the federal government against networks and their parent companies-especially when TV personalities or comedians say things that upset Trump.
Even before Trump won the 2024 election, he and some of his closest advisors had forged plans on how to use the FCC and other mighty federal bodies to punish Late Night comedians that Trump has had for years.
It is also not the first time that Kimmel together with Iger and the Disney bosses. As early as 2013, Kimmel was in anger in the company because a sketch ran on his show in which he asked a group of first graders how the United States was supposed to deal with the immense debt of China. A boy replied: “All killing in China”, whereupon Kimmel replied: “Okay, that’s an interesting idea.”
At that time, Disney was very interested in gaining a foothold in China. Aspects of films such as Iron Man 3 had already been adapted to secure their distribution there, and the company planned the opening of a 4.4 billion Disneyland theme park in Shanghai.
The future of late night could be in streaming
Abc finally apologized, while Kimmel also took up the controversy on his show: “I thought it was obvious that I would not agree with this statement, but apparently it wasn’t. So I just wanted to say: I’m sorry, I apologize.”
As far as the current crisis is concerned, the insider says that Disney could have avoided all of the chaos by shifting Kimmel to Hulu. The future of late night could be in streaming, where you can see, when you want and skip what you don’t want. This is how people consume these shows anyway. “