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Credit: Disney/ABCThe big news story over the past 24 hours was Disney shelving Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the host made what Disney executives believed were inappropriate comments about Charlie Kirk’s death. However, new reporting from Rolling Stone is starting to shed some light on how that announcement came to pass and the larger forces at play in Disney’s ultimate decision to put the show on an “indefinite” hiatus.
It started early Wednesday morning when Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr told a podcast that broadcasters should “stop airing Kimmel’s show,” after his remarks about Kirk. Carr made a not-so-veiled threat to broadcasters, saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Moments after Carr made his remarks, Nexstar, the largest station group owner in the country, announced that it was pulling Kimmel from its ABC-affiliated networks. According to Rolling Stone, executives at Disney, ABC, and its affiliated stations gathered for a meeting after Nexstar’s decision, where many of the executives in attendance did not believe that Kimmel had said anything wrong.
Despite that, Disney caved to the pressure from Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting, the largest owner of ABC affiliates in the country, to pull Kimmel from the air. Sinclair has said that it will not return Kimmel to its stations until “formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability,” and until Kimmel makes a direct apology to the Kirk Family, and for the network makes a significant donation to the family and Turning Point U.S.A.
However, there’s more behind Nexstar’s cancellation of Kimmel than just outrage over his comments. Nexstar is in the process of merging with Tegna, which would make the nation’s largest station owner even bigger. This multi-billion-dollar deal would put Nexstar stations in 80 percent of American homes.
The Nexstar/Tegna merger is technically illegal, violating current FCC ownership caps. Therefore, for the deal to go through, it requires significant regulatory approval from the FCC and the DOJ.
Nexstar is not the only company with billions of dollars on the line that needs the FCC’s approval. Disney is also facing headwinds from the Trump Administration over its proposed deal with the NFL, but Disney has given in to the administration before.
This is not Disney’s first time giving in to the Trump Administration. In early August, Disney settled its lawsuit with former Mandalorian star Gina Carano, but the timing baffled outsiders. However, it all made perfect sense.
Just a day before Disney’s settlement with Carano was announced, Disney announced it had struck a deal with the NFL to purchase its content library, the NFL Network, and the NFL’s Red Zone channel.
This deal also gives the NFL a 10 percent stake in ESPN. The combination of the two is bound to bring regulatory scrutiny, and that’s exactly what’s happened.
Even before the deal was official, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was sniffing around it to ensure it didn’t break any laws. And then, just a day after the deal was announced, Reuters reported that the Department of Justice was opening an investigation into the agreement that could take up to a year to resolve.
With Kimmel off the airwaves, Disney and Nexstar can tell the FCC that they’ve done their part to ensure this type of thing doesn’t happen again, and both can hope for smooth sailing for their billion-dollar deals. However, what the future holds for Kimmel and the First Amendment is anyone’s guess.
What do you think of Disney pulling Jimmy Kimmel off the air? Let us know in the comments.