<\/p>\n
Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em> was pulled off the air \u201cindefinitely\u201d<\/a> on Wednesday after the late-night talk show host made remarks earlier in the week about Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was fatally shot last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n ABC did not publicly explain the decision, but the move came after Nexstar Media Group \u2014 which owns the largest number of local television stations in the United States \u2014 said that it would be removing the show from its ABC affiliate stations.<\/p>\n During his Sept. 15 show, Kimmel said<\/a> the \u201cMAGA gang\u201d \u2014 i.e., supporters of President Trump<\/a> and his \u201cMake America great again\u201d slogan \u2014 was trying to \u201cscore political points\u201d by calling Robinson a left-wing radical.<\/p>\n \u201cThe MAGA Gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,\u201d Kimmel said, adding, \u201cIn between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement posted to Nexstar\u2019s website<\/a>, Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar\u2019s broadcasting division, called Kimmel\u2019s comments concerning the death of Kirk \u201coffensive and insensitive\u201d and said that they do not \u201creflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cContinuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue,\u201d the statement continued.<\/p>\n Nexstar Media Group, headquartered in Irving, Texas, owns and operates local television stations across the United States, many of which are affiliates of major networks, including ABC. Affiliates are local TV stations that are independently owned but broadcast programming from major national networks.<\/p>\n Nexstar provides the local channels, or affiliates, so that people can watch these national programs in their cities along with local news and other programming.<\/p>\n Nexstar, which owns more than 200 stations, is currently seeking the Trump administration’s approval for a $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna<\/a>, another major U.S. broadcaster. Should the merger go through \u2014 it requires regulatory approvals \u2014 the combined company will have stations in most of the top TV markets, giving it more advertising power and a bigger national presence.<\/p>\n To \u201cpreempt\u201d programming means not to air the show and instead replace it with another programming option, as sometimes happens for breaking news or special events.<\/p>\n ABC\u2019s decision to pull Kimmel off the air comes on the heels of backlash from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who appeared on conservative commenter Benny Johnson\u2019s The Benny Show<\/em><\/a> to speak about the comments Kimmel made. He called the talk show host\u2019s choice of words \u201cthe sickest conduct possible,\u201d alleging that Kimmel was \u201c[playing] into the narrative that [the shooting suspect] was somehow a MAGA or Republican-motivated person.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people don\u2019t understand,\u201d Carr said, is that broadcasters \u201chave a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe can do this the easy way or the hard way,\u201d Carr said on the podcast. \u201cThese companies can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or there\u2019s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n Carr was nominated as an FCC commissioner in 2017 by Trump during his first term. Trump then appointed Carr as chairman in January 2025, when he took office for his second term.<\/p>\n This is not the first time that Carr has called out programs for their content, specifically over what he perceives to be a political bias against conservatives. Earlier this year, Carr initiated an inquiry into CBS News’ 60 Minutes<\/em> interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The investigation focused on whether CBS News had violated FCC rules by editing the interview in a way that allegedly favored Harris<\/a>. 60 Minutes <\/em>denied the allegations, and ultimately the FCC did not impose penalties on CBS.<\/p>\n In July, Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, settled a lawsuit<\/a> with Trump over the editing of the interview for $16 million. A month later, the FCC approved the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance<\/a>. Carr pushed back against critics who claimed that the approval was hinged on settling the lawsuit with Trump.<\/p>\n The news of Kimmel\u2019s show getting pulled off the air comes after Stephen Colbert\u2019s program, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/em>, was canceled by CBS<\/a>. The show was canceled in July, after CBS News settled with Trump. On his show, Colbert called Paramount Global\u2019s settling with Trump a \u201cbig fat bribe.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n In a statement, Paramount Global said the move was purely a \u201cfinancial decision\u201d against a \u201cchallenging backdrop in late night\u201d and that it was \u201cnot related in any way to the show\u2019s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled off the air \u201cindefinitely\u201d on Wednesday after the late-night talk show host made remarks earlier in the week about Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was fatally shot last week. ABC did not publicly explain the decision, but the move came after Nexstar Media Group \u2014 which owns the largest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2032661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[374728,374318,340116,374324,23060,343833,374836,310715,348808],"class_list":["post-2032660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-affiliate-stations","tag-brendan-carr","tag-charlie-kirk","tag-fcc","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-local-television-stations","tag-nexstar-media-group","tag-president-trump","tag-talk-show-host"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/What-Nexstar-the-FCC-and-the-state-of-local-TV.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2032661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What is Nexstar? What are affiliate stations?<\/h2>\n
What does it mean to \u201cpreempt\u201d Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em>?<\/h2>\n
How is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) involved?<\/h2>\n
Other late-night talk show turmoil<\/h2>\n