No, neither democracy nor Jimmy Kimmel died yesterday afternoon, contrary to the shrill views of a sizable percentage of my social media “family”. Last time I checked, most of us did not have federal agents tearing down our front doors and yanking the plugs for our internet connections out of the wall–even those of us who objectively believe that the fat farting fascist in charge of all of this has, ironically, the thinnest skin of anyone who has ever been in the public limelight. Were that truly the case, given what I’ve said about him even in merely the preceding sentence, I suspect my sorry ass would have been dragged out of my place of business, not the contractors spending other people’s money that feign an inability to understand English when I would attempt to engage them in a conversation about their home service needs. As long as that seems to be the boots on the ground priority, I guess all of us who don’t have a late night talk show are safe for now.
Of course I do not condone the draconian chain of events that at a dizzying pace resulted in the abrupt and euphemistically classified “indefinite” suspension of Kimmel that became as prolific a breaking news event from a week earlier as the one he chose to address in his first post-Emmy losing monologue, as THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s James Hibberd chronicled:
Jimmy Kimmel‘s latest monologue has ignited a political firestorm and resulted in ABC suspending the show.
Kimmel’s comments about the Charlie Kirk shooting during Tuesday’s show drew condemnation from Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr. That, in turn, prompted one group of ABC affiliates, owned by Nexstar Media Group, to declare they will not air Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the immediate future, which then led ABC to announce the show was being taken off the air “indefinitely.”
The uproar started after Kimmel said suspected Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson was a MAGA Republican. “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 and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said.
Carr was interviewed by YouTuber Benny Johnson on Wednesday…where he appeared to threaten ABC affiliate licenses over the comments, which he called “the sickest conduct possible.”
The fact that yet another toady from this administration was using the pulpit of a podcast to spew his biased “brilliance”–a day after our sitting Vice President decided to “honor” his deceased friend by cosplaying as a “guest host” and allowing evil genius Stephen Miller to show his vengeful hand shouldn’t have been surprising. Nor should have both the tone and “accuracy” of the defense he offered up:
“So I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel, who are frankly talentless and are looking for ways to get attention,” he said. “Their grip on the narrative is slipping. That doesn’t mean that it’s not still important to hold the public interest standard … We have a rule on the book that interprets the public interest standard that says ‘news distortion’ is something that is prohibited … the FCC has stepped back from enforcing it … I think it’s past time these [affiliates] themselves push back on Comcast and this and say, ‘Listen, we’re not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we’re running the possibility of license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.’
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the FREAKING FCC CHAIRMAN somehow thought Comcast owned ABC. This isn’t the brightest administration in history–and certainly those that voted for them aren’t exactly awash in intelligence, either. After all, many of them used to be podcasters.
But what has somehow gotten lost in this emotional equation is the inexorable fact that the economic model of broadcast networks is dependent upon having the reach that a single station group can’t have. The real power lies in those that control those stations, and if one is truly looking for blame one needs to look no further than the fact that Nexstar chairman Perry Sook is a staunch supporter of Trump and, moreover, an actually legitimate businessman.
Take a look at the list of markets that he currently has ABC affiliates in. Collectively, they’re not all that significant; only four are measured on a daily basis with meters with Nielsen. None are in the Top 20. As was widely referenced in yesterday’s reporting, that alone shouldn’t have forced ABC’s hand as quickly as it did.
But bear in mind that Nexstar has a $6.2B acquisition of Tegna currently sitting on Carr’s desk awaiting approval. Including strongly rated ABC affiliates in significantly larger and more politically influencial markets like Dallas and Sacramento, as well as other traditionally metered markets like Louisville, Jacksonville and Norfolk. It’s pretty clear those cities were heading toward cancelling Kimmel as soon as the ink dried on the paperwork. Yes, we’ve mused about that recently.
And later in the evening it was revealed that another significant station group was in goosestep with Nexstar. AV CLUB’s William Hughes wailed about that:
Giant local TV conglomerate Nexstar might have been both the first, and the biggest, of America’s various station-owning overlords to make a public stink about Jimmy Kimmel this week, calling comments the ABC host made addressing Republicans “working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk” both “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.” But Nexstar could wind up tragically losing the race to be the most performatively angry about the talk show host’s statements: Sinclair Broadcast Group has now entered the contest, and nobody gets angrier, in more attention-seeking ways, than Sinclair.
The company—which owns the largest collection of ABC affiliate stations in the United States, and is notorious for forcing local newsrooms to run “must-run” segments typically espousing conservative views—issued its own statement on Wednesday night…mere capitulation wasn’t enough for Sinclair, which issued a statement late on Wednesday stating that “Sinclair will not lift the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on our stations until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.” The statement also all but begged for the FCC to “take immediate regulatory action to address control held over local broadcasters by the big national networks.” Oh, and they want Kimmel to personally apologize to Kirk’s family, and give a donation to his organization Turning Point USA.
Sinclair is still under the purview of the Smith family, and yes, we’ve mused about how they’ve influenced the Baltimore DMA for decades and have now become the overlords of what’s left of print as well. And they’ve got a fairly decent list of ABC affiliates as well, no less prominent than the one in Washington, D.C.
To those who serve constituents in areas that are not defined as flyover states this is all news to them and has some of them downright apopletic. Naturally, FOX NEWS’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn couldn’t hold back punctuating his report with one of the more hand-wringing ones:
“I’m not sure who deserves more disdain and disgust: Trump and the FCC for their blatant violation of the Constitution, or Disney and Nexstar for sacrificing their values and folding to a wannabe Mob Boss and his authoritarian goons,” Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., wrote on X, posting a CNN interview he did on the subject.
But for anyone who’s actually spent any quality time in the inexorably declining world of local television, behind whatever personal hubris and naked political ambition are some indisputable facts and precedents that are decades in the making, and have scant little to do with tantrums of any elected official.
One of the few accurate kernels that spews out of the bloated thumbs of our truther-in-chief is that Kimmel is indeed low-rated. Roughly a year ago, ABC press release bragged about an uptick to a 0.19 adults 25-54 rating. Translated: 99.8 per cent of local stations’ key revenue demographic are watching something else. And if you read the fine print of this spin, they’re not watching Kimmel’s key competitors. If one takes Nielsen at face value, it would appear they’re watching a disproportionate amount of YouTube, and one might suspect someone like Johnson. So if nothing else, tip your hat to the media experts advising our current leadership. It’s not like they were booking themselves on late night shows to, say, promote an upcoming book.
And it’s not like the concept of affiliates seeking alternatives for low-rated network shows is anything new, and that’s especially true in the case of ABC. Way back when the leader of the free world was merely in cognitive decline, numerous larger-market affiliates delayed NIGHTLINE by at least half an hour to allow their cash cow local news to expand by a few minutes (this practice eventually forced the networks to follow suit) and program broader-appeal content with more local time to sell. The ABC stations owned by Hearst, especially ones in the higher HUT level Central Time Zones, were early supporters of ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT as well off-network sitcoms like M*A*S*H, CHEERS and ROSEANNE. Plenty of other major groups had similar approaches when POLITICALLY INCORRECT was its lead-out.
The reasons for this had nothing to do with political ideology, though I suppose in hindsight one could contend stifling the likes of Ted Koppel and Bill Maher could have been interpreted that way. No, it had far more to do with local stations with vested interest in maximizing revenue deciding that the programming decisions coming out of New York and Los Angeles that seemed to play on owned-and-operated stations were not ideally suited to their markets.
More uncomfortable truths emerge from the reality check that for decades networks have treated affiliates with disdain and heavy-handedness, As an informed veteran of local market negotiations mused to me privately last night:
Affiliates are fed up. From compensation to reverse compensation. From exclusivity to non-exclusivity of programs. Plus the networks want a large part of their retransmission consent dollars. Affiliates are pissed. They’re always looking for something to blame.
Most of those earlier moves came when the likes of a third-place Kimmel was delivering crooked numbers to the left of the decimal–not that such lentil-dicing was needed at that point. The fact we are now do need ratings relfecting hundredths gives them all the business reason to take these stands. And yes, the fact that these shows that collectively barely eclipse half a rating point are available on every one of the streaming services give them further justification.
Whether or not it plays into the narrative of someone who Kimmel dismissed as a four-year-old mourning a goldfish is actually more coincidence than design. Stations have a fiduciary right to the communities they serve, let alone the shareholders that invest in them, to make intelligent and sometimes difficult business decisions. Take a look at the local market ratings on some of those Nexstar and Sinclair stations. They’ve not even at that 0.19 threshold.
But a solution that for the moment is supplying these stations with repeats of CELEBRITY FAMILY FEUD is anything but progress. (Although I’ve noticed that in some heavier Black markets the civilian editions have often outrated Kimmel in that demo.).
So let me advise David Smith’s son Jason and Andrew Alford, Sook’s lackey, the gentlemen in charge of actually running these maverick station groups that if you’re truly serious about serving your communities, now would be the time for you to actually go back to the syndication playbook and figure out something better to put on that could permanently replace Kimmel. If you’re going to cut the cord, don’t dangle the possibility of “reinstatement” in front of anyone. Give CBS the credit for at least making that decision for your stations so affiliated-and more than ever I’m convinced Colbert, even out of solidarity for his Emmy supporter and fellow Baby Doll Dixon client, will not make it to the May 2026 finish line on their air.
Nexstar could easily deploy one of the personalities from their NewsNation network, say Chris Cuomo, as a placeholder while they search for a compelling voice. There’s plenty of podcast guests besides members of our cabinet out there that are worth exploring. Set them up for a few on-air auditions. Conduct a few real-time focus groups segmented by political affiliation involving the likes of neurofeedback to avoid the obvious question of group bias.
Your cost-conscious breathren at FOX Local has a franchise called BATTLEGROUND that they produced out of their lower-cost Atlanta O and O last year during the run-up to the presidential election that has been resurrected and slotted against Kimmel, Fallon and Colbert in New York as the countdown to the controversial mayoral election builds steam. You should look at what those demographic ratings trends are, especially since he’s now going to be going against Steve Harvey for the time being. That show was up and running in a matter of weeks. You have just as much capacity and motivation to go after those political dollars as they do. And hey, they are plenty of consultants that can help you do it if indeed you want to acknowledge the need. (hand raised!).
If you truly want to do the bidding of your aspirational despot then, as my late night TV-loving mom often advised, shit or get off the pot. Even he occasionally does that.
Until next time…