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Late-night television hosts credited people who boycotted Disney for getting Jimmy Kimmel’s late night TV show back on the air after the corporation had indefinitely suspended Kimmel amid pressure from the Trump administration.
“We got word that our long national late-nightmare is over,” Stephen Colbert said during his show on Monday night.
“Once more, I am the only martyr in late night, unless … CBS, you want to announce anything?” Colbert joked, referencing CBS’ decision to cancel his show earlier this year. “Still no? Because the money thing, I forgot.”
Protests of Disney’s suspension of Kimmel and canceled subscriptions to Disney products mounted as concern over free speech rights grew. High-profile people joined in the calls to boycott. Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani said he wouldn’t do a town hall on a local ABC channel, reversing course after Kimmel’s reinstatement.
Some Republicans, including Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, also spoke out against the Federal Communications Commission’s chair pressuring Disney.
“Here’s why Disney folded after Kimmel was suspended: Google searches for cancel Disney+ and cancel Hulu spiked,” Colbert said, “which explains why the other trending search was ‘how to entertain my child without Bluey.’ So Disney put Kimmel back on because you, the American people were upset.”
Comedian Jon Stewart credited the boycott campaign of “pretending that you were going to cancel Hulu while secretly racing through four seasons of Only Murders in the Building” in his show on Monday night.
“Wasn’t it interesting to try and figure out all the tentacles Disney has in your daily life?” Stewart quipped. “It’s one thing to swear off cruises, but the Avengers. How is it possible that by getting rid of one company, I can’t watch Winnie the Pooh or Monday Night Football or listen to early Hillary Duff?”
Seth Meyers pointed to the “massive national backlash to Trump’s crackdown on free speech, even among conservatives”.
“I haven’t seen a poll yet, but I think if you asked Americans if the president should be dictating what TV hosts can and can’t say, you’d get about 3% positive,” then played a clip of Trump claiming that the coverage he receives is “97% negative”.
Disney said it would bring Kimmel back on Tuesday, saying it had “spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday”.
In explaining its decision to take the show off the air, the company said it wanted to “avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country” and that some of Kimmel’s comments were “ill-timed and thus insensitive”.
The suspension came after the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, threatened the agency could come after those who play Kimmel’s show after comments Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk’s shooter. Kimmel had said that the “Maga gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it”. The comments came before charging documents alleged the shooter had left-leaning viewpoints.
“But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said on a podcast. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Companies that hold the licenses for local channels that carry Kimmel’s show said they would preempt it, not airing it on the stations they own. Then, Disney said it would suspend Kimmel’s show indefinitely.
However, not all stations in the USA will broadcast Kimmel’s return.
Sinclair Broadcast Group said it won’t air the show on its ABC affiliate stations.
“Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming,” said Sinclair, which has the nation’s largest number of the network’s affiliate stations.
“Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,” the group said in a statement late on Monday.
Another broadcast group, Nexstar, also said that it will continue to preempt the show.
In a statement, Nexstar said, “We made a decision last week to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel Live! following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s ‘ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse. We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.”
The actions of Nexstar and Sinclair combined mean that Kimmel’s show won’t air on almost a quarter of ABC‘s affiliate reach.
