ABC Affiliates Told Kimmel Preempted Through at Least Thursday

ABC affiliates were informed late Wednesday that “Jimmy Kimmel Live” will be dark on the network at least through Thursday, with future plans for the 11:35 p.m. slot still undetermined.

A memo sent to the owners of ABC’s more than 150 affiliate station partners addressed the explosive situation that erupted Wednesday afternoon when powerful station group Nexstar announced it would preempt Kimmel’s show on the company’s 32 ABC affiliate stations. Sinclair Broadcast Group also quickly confirmed its plans to preempt Kimmel over the hosts remarks related to the MAGA movement and the activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot dead at a public speaking event in Utah on Sept. 10.

In a memo from the ABC Affiliate Board, a longstanding group that liaises with the network on behalf of station owners, ABC affiliates were informed that the network would program repeat episodes of “Celebrity Family Feud” in the 11:35 p.m. hour slot usually occupied by Kimmel on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Beyond that, “formal guidance from Disney/ABC is forthcoming,” the memo stated. The memo noted that the affiliate board “remains engaged with ABC” on the roiling controversy.

A source close to the situation maintains that the network has not yet made a formal decision about the future of Kimmel’s show. Executives were in direct conversation with the host and his representatives on Wednesday evening as the news broke, sparking a range of reactions from the left and right.

The moves by Nexstar and Sinclair mark a rare example of broadcast TV station owners flexing significant power against the media giants that own the Big Four networks. Affiliate stations around the country, particularly those in big markets, were once enormously powerful as they were a vital link in the network’s distribution around the country. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox used to pay affiliate stations to carry their programming. But starting in the late 1990s, the economics of TV changed so dramatically that stations started pay “reverse comp” to networks to help them shoulder the burden of costly sports rights deals such as the NFL and Olympics.

Today, the Big Four networks all have numerous cable and streaming options to lean on for distribution of their shows. But the local-national construct of broadcast network TV still has its advantages, even in a social media driven, 24/7 media environment. Nexstar and Sinclair undoubtedly saw the Kimmel flap — which began brewing on social media on Tuesday following the remarks in Kimmel’s Monday night monologue — as a moment to exercise some influence. The door was opened wide earlier in the day by Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr, who threatened to launch another investigation into ABC over what he and others deemed to be offensive comments from Kimmel related to Kirk’s slaying.

Free speech advocates, on the other hand, have decried Carr’s statements in particular as another disturbing example of the chairman wielding the FCC’s regulatory authority as a hammer to harm President Donald Trump’s political and social adversaries. The Kimmel standoff also comes as Nexstar is pushing hard for the FCC to overhaul its existing limits on TV station ownership in order to allow Nexstar to acquire a rival station group, Tegna. Nexstar announced last month its intent to buy Tegna in a $6 billion transaction that would definitely put Nexstar over the ownership limit line, unless the FCC revamps those rules. Broadcasters have lobbied for years to loosen the FCC’s various ownership caps on local broadcast TV and radio stations, arguing that they are anachronistic in an era of digital giants such as Facebook, Amazon and Google.

The speed with which Kimmel’s show was compromised came as a shock to many in Hollywood as well as to broadcast TV veterans.

“Remember September 17 — that’s the day we lost the First Amendment in America,” said a broadcast TV station executive with knowledge of the ABC affiliate memo.