The ABC late-night host is returning to broadcast on Tuesday following a brief-but-monumental suspension that sparked a national debate over the Trump Administration’s pressure tactics and the modern limits and consequences of free speech.
“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,” ABC parent The Walt Disney Company said in a statement Monday. “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.”
Behind the scenes, sources says Kimmel wasn’t planning to apologize on that night’s show and instead was going to defend his original comments as being taken out of context and “grossly mischaracterized” by MAGA, which Disney brass thought would only inflame the situation. Disney/ABC then announced Jimmy Kimmel Live! was “suspended indefinitely.” On Thursday, a follow-up meeting between Kimmel and Disney execs reportedly ended in a stalemate with Kimmel sticking to his stated plan of unapologetically defending himself.
Despite Kimmel’s return, it is not immediately clear if his show will be available across the entire country. Sinclair, for its part, had said that it would not go back to running Kimmel’s show on its stations until the late night host apologized for his comments, met with Sinclair representatives, and made a donation to Turning Point, the organization that Kirk founded. Sinclair, it should be noted, owns the ABC station in the Washington D.C. metro area, among other markets.
Nexstar, similarly, could also choose to continue to preempt the show, though of course it wiould still be accessible online across the country after it runs on ABC.
Too late. I’ll be pirating and distributing their content
don't worry, they're still on the BDS boycott priority target list. It is still morally-just to pirate any and all Disney-owned content.
Why pirate? I only care about his monologues, and those are available on YouTube every night.
Disney owns a lot more than just ABC.
Sure, but I never had kids and am a Trek guy sted Wars, so I'm unaware of anything else I'm missing out on. I've already sailed the high seas for the content I care for. But frankly, the only linear TV I watch is late-night monologues, and that's been the case for years ... broadcast became least common denominator, and there are better uses of my time, like staring at a wall with my own thoughts.
Gotcha, I misunderstood your tone. You're saying you personally don't consume any Disney other than late night monologues. That makes sense! The late night talk show scene is so weird. I don't see us getting another generation of late night hosts after this current gen retires. It's all twitch streams and podcasts now.
I mean, it makes sense that the format isn't conducive to modern viewing habits. I think Colbert mentioned having 200 employees on his show plus the band. The only people who hear the band are the studio audience, so that seems a bit of an extravagance.
Given that the current generation of hosts are slightly older than I am, I'm sure a lot of references don't land for advertisers' target demo. I love obscure references, but Letterman made a lot I didn't get; it's very much generational.
The way to skew the audience younger is to have guests I've never heard of, and the same holds true for musical guests. Leaving me with the monologue and perhaps a comedic host bit afterward, but I'm out before whoever's on a publicity tour shills their product -- with very few exceptions.
Doing a 15-minute monologue on YouTube instead of making a full show drastically reduces overhead.
Though in the case of Colbert, I'm wondering what the hell their plan is for the Ed Sullivan. Bring back Star Search?