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Even as Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em>\u00a0returned to the airwaves Tuesday night \u2014 and hit record numbers on YouTube the day after \u2014\u00a0station owner Nexstar said it\u00a0would continue to keep the show out of their programming.\u00a0<\/p>\n“Nexstar is continuing to evaluate the status of Jimmy Kimmel Live! <\/em>on our ABC-affiliated local television stations, and the show will be pre-empted while we do so,” a Wednesday statement read. It went on to reference\u00a0ongoing talks with Disney, ABC’s parent company.<\/p>\n“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.”<\/p>\n
Both Nexstar, which\u00a0owns and operates 32 ABC affiliate stations, and broadcast group Sinclair have pre-empted\u00a0Jimmy Kimmel’s\u00a0show since last week. The two station owners\u00a0represent about 25 per cent\u00a0of all affiliates, and had stopped airing Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em>\u00a0in reaction to Kimmel’s comments about the\u00a0alleged shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n“We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as\u00a0anything other than one of them, and with everything they can, to score political points from it,”\u00a0Kimmel said in his Sept. 15 monologue.<\/p>\n
WATCH | Kimmel pokes fun at Trump in return to late-night TV:<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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Kimmel pokes fun at Trump administration in late-night return<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Jimmy Kimmel aimed his barbs at U.S. President Donald Trump and members of his administration in his return to late-night television after being suspended. He also paid tribute to the widow of slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\nABC issued a statement on Sept. 17, saying it would be indefinitely suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em>\u00a0without\u00a0providing any immediate reasons for doing so.\u00a0<\/p>\nAfter a series of discussions between Kimmel and Disney, the\u00a0talk show was brought back on the air Tuesday night. Kimmel was emotional during his opening monologue, nearly breaking down at least twice when he told his audience “it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.” He added that he also didn’t intend to “blame any specific group” for the actions of Kirk’s alleged killer \u2014\u00a0but understood that, to some, “that felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both.”<\/p>\n
The episode garnered 6.26 million broadcast viewers, according to a news release from Disney and ABC Entertainment, despite not airing in 23 per cent of U.S. TV households.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to that\u00a0Wednesday evening release from Disney, the opening monologue had\u00a0garnered 26 million views on all social platforms combined. But as of Thursday morning, it was at nearly\u00a020 million views on\u00a0YouTube\u00a0alone, breaking Kimmel’s all-time viewership record on the video platform.<\/p>\n
While his account has multiple clips and gags with views\u00a0in the tens of millions, his monologues tend to get more modest figures.\u00a0Tuesday’s post surpassed\u00a0a monologue detailing his son’s birth and heart disease. That video, posted in 2017, currently has roughly 14.7 million views.<\/p>\n
LISTEN | <\/strong><\/em>Front Burner<\/strong> on Kimmel, free speech and big money media:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n
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Front Burner<\/span>30:39<\/span>Jimmy Kimmel, free speech and big money media<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAfter a brief suspension for comments he made in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing, Jimmy Kimmel has made his return to late night.
\nIt was just the latest example in a string of cancellations, resignations, lawsuits, settlements and potential mergers that tell the story of a media industry buckling to Trump or consolidating under a wealthy and powerful few, many of whom are friendly with the Trump administration.\u00a0
\nEoin Higgins, independent reporter and author of \u201cOwned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left\u201d joins us to talk about the bigger story of what\u2019s happening with American media and the changes still to come.
\nFor transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:\u00a0https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/radio\/frontburner\/transcripts [https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/radio\/frontburner\/transcripts]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\nHow others responded to Kimmel’s suspension<\/h2>\n
Former U.S. President Barack Obama wrote on social media last week that the current administration had reached a “new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.” He said\u00a0that media companies needed to stand up to the “government coercion” rather than capitulate to it.<\/p>\n
Others also expressed shock and concern over what the move meant for free speech. Late-night hosts Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert all expressed solidarity with Kimmel during their shows last week.<\/p>\n
And hundreds of\u00a0Hollywood stars\u00a0including Tom Hanks, Barbra Streisand and Jennifer Aniston\u00a0signed a letter circulated by the American Civil Liberties Union that called ABC’s move “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation.”<\/p>\n
LISTEN | The state of free speech in the U.S.:<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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The Current<\/span>15:13<\/span>What\u2019s the state of free speech in America?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nJimmy Kimmel returned to his late night show last night after being suspended for comments he made surrounding the death of Charlie Kirk. The suspension ignited a debate about free speech in the media \u2014 but is his return a victory? We speak to Greg Lukianoff, is the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\nPodcaster Joe Rogan also came out in defence of Kimmel. Shortly ahead of Tuesday’s show, the commentator slammed conservative figures celebrating what he characterized as an attack on free speech.<\/p>\n
“I definitely don’t think that the government should be involved, ever, in dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue,” he said on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience<\/em>, while blaming his slow response on the fact he had been on a mountain vacation with limited internet access.<\/p>\n“The problem is the companies \u2014\u00a0if they’re being pressured by the government \u2026\u00a0if people on the right are like, ‘Yeah, go get ’em.’\u00a0Oh my God, you’re crazy. You are crazy for supporting this, because this will be used on you.”<\/p>\n
In contrast, figures like former Fox News and NBC personality Megyn Kelly, who also guest hosted Kirk’s podcast last week, maintained that Kimmel’s suggestion that Kirk’s killer may have been a Trump supporter was a “vile, disgusting lie.”<\/p>\n
And following the return of Kimmel’s show, Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said that the late-night host’s monologue was “not good enough” and that he needed to apologize.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, consumers in support of Kimmel moved to punish ABC parent company Disney with their wallets over the last week, cancelling subscriptions to its streaming service.<\/p>\n
And in response to Nexstar and Sinclair continuing to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em>\u00a0from their ABC affiliate stations, a handful of protests have emerged across America.<\/p>\nThat included\u00a0demonstrations\u00a0in front of Nexstar and Sinclair-owned stations in cities like Columbus, Ohio and Seattle on Tuesday, ahead of ABC returning Kimmel’s show to the airwaves. A protest also formed near Nexstar’s headquarters in Texas.<\/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.cbc.ca \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even as Jimmy Kimmel Live!\u00a0returned to the airwaves Tuesday night \u2014 and hit record numbers on YouTube the day after \u2014\u00a0station owner Nexstar said it\u00a0would continue to keep the show out of their programming.\u00a0 “Nexstar is continuing to evaluate the status of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on our ABC-affiliated local television stations, and the show will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2092303,"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":[],"class_list":["post-2092302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Nexstar-to-keep-Jimmy-Kimmel-Live-off-the-air-as.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092302","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=2092302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2092304,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092302\/revisions\/2092304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2092303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2092302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2092302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2092302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}