Owners of Syracuse TV stations had major role in getting Jimmy Kimmel suspended

The owners of several Syracuse TV stations had a major role in getting late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel suspended.

ABC announced Wednesday that “Jimmy Kimmel Live” has been pulled off the air “indefinitely” after Kimmel suggested the man suspected of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a supporter of President Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement.

“We had 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 and with everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said Monday.

Tyler Robinson, 22, has been charged with murdering Kirk with a single gunshot as the Republican youth leader spoke at Utah Valley University last week. Authorities have not identified a clear motive but Robinson’s mother told investigators that their son had turned left politically in the last year and became more supportive of gay and transgender rights after dating someone who is transgender, according to Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray.

Kimmel’s comments sparked right-wing backlash, prompting the largest owners of television stations to pressure ABC into suspending his show.

Deadline reports Nexstar, which owns Syracuse’s ABC affiliate NewsChannel 9 (WSYR-TV), said Wednesday all of its stations would preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “for the foreseeable future.”

“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,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates CNY Central in Syracuse and is the largest owner of ABC affiliates nationwide, also objected to Kimmel’s “problematic comments” and said it would stop airing his show “until further notice.” Sinclair also said it would air a tribute to Kirk on its ABC stations in Kimmel’s time slot on Friday.

ABC responded to Nexstar and Sinclair by suspending Kimmel, whose show has aired on the Disney-owned network since 2003.

“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even (Stephen) Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy (Fallon) and Seth (Meyers), two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

syracuse.com has reached out to NewsChannel 9 and CNY Central for comment.

According to Deadline, both of their parent companies have been lobbying the FCC for deregulation. Nexstar has proposed an $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna that would give the company 265 TV stations in 44 states and is asking the Trump administration to relax media ownership limits. Sinclair said Wednesday “this incident highlights the critical need for the FCC to take immediate regulatory action to address control held over local broadcasters by the big national networks.”

FCC chairman Brendan Carr, who was first nominated to his role by Trump in 2017, told Benny Johnson’s podcast Wednesday that the Federal Communications Commission may also take action against ABC. Carr also praised Nexstar and Sinclair on Fox News.

“I can’t imagine another time when we’ve had local broadcasters tell what we call a national programmer like Disney that your content no longer meets the needs and the values of our community,” Carr told “Hannity” Wednesday. “So, this is a important turning point.”

Kimmel’s suspension is the latest in a series of politically charged issues involving media companies. ABC settled the president’s defamation suit over comments made by George Stephanopoulos for $16 million, Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over an edit of a Kamala Harris interview with “60 Minutes,” and MSNBC fired political analyst Matthew Dowd for his comments made in the wake of Kirk’s shooting.