Jimmy Kimmel Live! will make its return to Nexstar’s ABC affiliate stations, the company announced on Friday, just hours after Sinclair revealed it would also allow the show on its airwaves.
“We have had discussions with executives at the Walt Disney Company and appreciate their constructive approach to addressing our concerns,” read the statement from Nexstar on Friday afternoon. “As a local broadcaster, Nexstar remains committed to protecting the First Amendment while producing and airing local and national news that is fact-based and unbiased, and above all, broadcasting content that is in the best interest of the communities we serve.”
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Nexstar owns and operates more than 30 ABC affiliates across the nation, including stations in Nashville, Salt Lake City, and Hartford/New Haven, Connecticut. The company added that it wants “to protect and reflect the specific sensibilities of our communities.”
“To be clear, our commitment to those principles has guided our decision throughout this process, independent of any external influence from government agencies or individuals,” it added.
The company previously joined Sinclair — owners of more than 30 ABC affiliates in the U.S., including in Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. — in preempting Kimmel after parent company Disney reinstated the show on Tuesday, Sept. 23, less than a week after it pulled the show over comments made by the late-night host in the wake of the fatal shooting of far-right activist Charlie Kirk and a threat from President Trump’s FCC chair, Brendan Carr.
Nexstar signaled it was open to the possibility of Kimmel’s return before Friday. On Wednesday, Sept. 24, the company released a statement saying it had been in “productive discussions” with Disney. “Nexstar is continuing to evaluate the status of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on our ABC-affiliated local television stations, and the show will be pre-empted while we do so,” Nexstar said in a statement on Wednesday. “We are engaged in productive discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve.”
Earlier on Sept. 26, Sinclair also shared that they’d welcome back Kimmel, also mentioning that their decisions were made without government influence. In a statement, the company said, “Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience. We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming.”
Both Nexstar and Sinclair preempted Kimmel’s initial return on Sept. 23 after his short-lived suspension, writing in a statement on Sept. 17 that “Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”
On Sept. 17, ABC “indefinitely” suspended Kimmel after comments he made on Jimmy Kimmel Live! about the assassination of Kirk, following a threat from President Donald Trump’s FCC chair. Days after Kirk’s murder, Kimmel remarked on the political affiliation of the killer. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” he said during his show, “and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
That same day, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, publicly called on licensed broadcasters to stop airing Kimmel’s show. “I think that it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, ‘Listen, we are going to preempt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore, until you straighten this out because we, we licensed broadcaster, are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion,’” Carr said while speaking with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson.
The backlash to ABC’s decision was swift. Fellow late-night hosts — Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, Conan O’Brien, James Corden, Jay Leno, Howard Stern, and David Letterman, among them — showed support for Kimmel. Additionally, more than 400 artists and entertainment industry figures signed an open letter published from the ACLU.
On Sept. 22, Disney announced the return of Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the next evening. “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,” the Walt Disney Co. said in a statement. “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.”
Kimmel’s first night back included an emotional monologue. “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about it. I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family and asking for compassion, and I meant it. And I still do.”
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