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Trump Administration, Jimmy Kimmel, and Media Brownshirting

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Trump is skilled at finding and exploiting weaknesses in his opponents, even if his victories often turn out to by Pyrrhic. His Administration’s short and successful campaign to achieve the ouster of a designed Trump enemy, Jimmy Kimmel, is producing a backlash not merely and predictably on what is left of the left and the Democrat aligned, but also those on the right who have memories better than goldfish and recall the loud free speech promises Trump made while campaigning.

And more to the point, as Charlie Kirk’s friend and ally Tucker Carlson stresses below, it’s a virtual certainty that Charlie Kirk would have disapproved of the silencing of a Trump critic. That’s before getting to the fact that Kimmel’s remarks were grossly mischaracterized by FCC chief Brendan Carr in order to whip up a right wing social media mob, most of whom either had such strong priors on Kimmel or otherwise would not be bothered to check that that they would take his claims as gospel.

As we’ll soon unpack, Disney was not just at risk from Trump Administration direct action, but also from action by supposed or actual viewer of Disney network content on ABC, as well as potential or actual visitors to Disney properties. But the direct threat was pretty potent. Carr’s words:

Frankly I think it’s past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney, and say, ‘We are going to preempt—we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out,’” Carr said. “It’s time for them to step up and say this garbage—to the extent that that’s what comes down the pipe in the future—isn’t something that serves the needs of our local communities.

The FCC controls the licenses of the stations in the Disney-owned ABC network. That consists of stations directly owned by Disney and affiliates that syndicate ABC content like the Jimmy Kimmel show. Both of the two major affiliate networks were fast out of the box to demand Kimmel’s scalp. From Business Insider:

The late-night host’s show was pulled from ABC on Wednesday after Kimmel made comments about Charlie Kirk’s death. The comments had drawn the ire of Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, who said in an interview earlier that day that the FCC might need to place broadcast licenses under review to ensure stations were operating “in the public interest.”

Carr’s comments were bad news for local TV operators who own ABC affiliate stations. These affiliate stations carry ABC programming under contract but aren’t owned by the network itself.

The two biggest local TV operators, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair, who together represent 60% of the ABC broadcast reach, both came out swinging against Kimmel, pressuring ABC to pull the plug on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

The companies said they would remove his show from their stations because they objected to Kimmel’s comments. Sinclair’s vice chairman, Jason Smith, called Kimmel’s words “inappropriate and deeply insensitive,” while Nexstar’s broadcasting division president, Andrew Alford, said they were “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”

Nexstar’s chief communications officer Gary Weitman said the decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was made “unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision,” Variety reported.

The Weitman statement is an insult to intelligence. The one-way communication from Carr to ABC licensees and other stations was crystal clear. Revoking licenses is a death sentence.

Without belaboring details, many observers, including those on the right, did not find what Kimmel said to be offensive, including ABC itself:

Aside from the license sword of Damocles, Nextstar, which is the biggest TV station network operator and a public company, could be expected to fall in line due to the need to receive an FCC waiver to consummate a pending merger. As LateNighter pointed out:

Much like fellow late-night host Stephen Colbert, the circumstances surrounding Jimmy Kimmel’s removal from the airwaves involve a company in the midst of a merger and under scrutiny from the FCC.

Nexstar Media Group is in the middle of a $6.2 billion merger with media company Tegna. Nexstar, which owns or partners with more than 200 television stations, would acquire about 65 more under the deal. The two companies entered into a definitive agreement for the merger last month, but it remains subject to regulatory approval from the FCC, currently chaired by Brendan Carr.

On Wednesday, Nexstar condemned “recent comments” made by Kimmel and announced that JKL would be pre-empted on its stations “for the foreseeable future.”….

With more than 30 ABC-affiliated owned or partner stations in its portfolio (and 13 more potentially coming via the Tegna merger), Nexstar’s move to pre-empt JKL likely pressured ABC to act at the network level. Networks often act at the behest of their affiliates, who generate significant revenue and connect them with audiences they otherwise couldn’t reach due to FCC-imposed ownership caps limiting networks to 39% of national TV households. Minutes after Nexstar’s move, ABC announced it would pull JKL from its schedule “indefinitely.”

The issue of the pending merger is gravy compared to the far more frontal attack via killing defiant stations via cancelling or suspending their licenses. Nevertheless, while the common formula in coverage of the Kimmel row and Nextstar’s susceptibility to pressure due to the pending Tenga merger is that they need FCC “approval”, the extent of rule-bending needed is greater than that. From Poynter in August:

Nexstar announced Tuesday that it intends to buy Tegna for $6.2 billion — a deal that has been rumored for weeks. To pull off what would be the biggest change in TV broadcast ownership history, however, the Federal Communications Commission would have to relax rules limiting how much of the country one company can reach with its over-the-air signal.

The FCC appears open to changing the rules. Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency “is committed to ending all of the rules and regulations that are no longer necessary.” Similar rollbacks have happened before….

If it does go through, the Nexstar-Tegna merger would create a broadcasting giant. The combined company would own 265 stations in 44 states and the District of Columbia, with a footprint in 132 of the country’s 210 designated market areas, the standard unit Nielsen uses to measure TV audiences. That includes nine of the top 10 markets, 41 of the top 50, 62 of the top 75 and 82 of the top 100.

But the number that matters most is that Nexstar’s reach would grow to 80% of U.S. television households — more than double the FCC’s current 39% cap.

Current FCC regulations state, “There is no limit on the number of television stations a single entity may own nationwide as long as the station group collectively reaches no more than 39 percent of all U.S. TV households.”

To allow this acquisition, the FCC would need to make a far bigger leap than it has in past decades. In 1996, the ownership cap rose from 25% to 35%. In 2004, the FCC pushed it up to 45%, only for Congress to roll it back to 39%.

Sinclair could be expected to comply irrespective of the FCC showing an awful lot of steel. It’s been Trump-supporting in its local news reporting. From the Guardian in 2024:

Sinclair, one of the largest owners of US television stations, has established itself as an influential player in the conservative movement by using trusted local news channels to spread disinformation and manipulated video of Joe Biden, media analysts say….

“When you stress a story the way Sinclair does, say on immigration, and you don’t look at the numbers and you don’t reflect on what has been going on, that is different than a news story. That is a political talking point,” said Anne Nelson, journalist and author of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right.

While local newspapers have seen their subscription and advertising numbers decline significantly over the last couple decades, their TV counterparts remain the most common source of local news – outside of personal contacts – and their advertising revenue has remained relatively stable, according to the Pew Research Center

An exclusive Wall Street Journal story, Inside Disney’s Abrupt Decision to Suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s Show, reports Disney did very briefly consider showing some spine:

Advertisers and affiliates soon called the network expressing concern about Kimmel’s show. Executives at Sinclair and Nexstar, owners of more than 60 local ABC stations, told network leaders after Carr’s remarks that they would “indefinitely preempt” the show starting that night, moves that would hobble the program’s reach.

Kimmel had planned to address Carr’s comments on his show Wednesday night, according to people familiar with the matter. Before his on-air appearance, Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, spoke to the host about his plan, the people said.

After the conversation between Kimmel and Walden, she and other senior executives thought that the star’s approach could make the situation worse, people familiar with their conversations said. Executives also discussed staff safety, including threatening emails staff on Kimmel’s show had received after Carr’s remarks and the posting of some of their personal information online, the people said….

A person close to the show said that Kimmel was planning to say that his words were being purposefully twisted by some members of the Make America Great Again movement.

The Carr salvo is likely to impose dhard costs on ABC. Again form the Journal:

ABC, which was in the middle of planning a live show featuring Kimmel expected to be filmed in Brooklyn, N.Y., later this month, scrambled to satisfy advertisers who had paid for commercials to run on episodes that were canceled. Advertising buyers said they likely would shift ad dollars committed to Kimmel’s show to other programs, with some considering asking for some money back.

So from a commercial standpoint, Disney’s position was untenable. It was hit not just with the Nextar and Sinclair refusal to run Kimmel, but also advertiser threats to pull commercials and risks to staff, which were potent due to decent odds of success in doxxing efforts. Let us not forget that Trump got CBS to agree to cancel Stephen Colbert when his contract expires in 2026. Colbert tried getting a bit of revenge:

So we have an example of how a President can very quickly bring large media to heel. Even though the FCC’s life-or-death power over broadcast stations is more than enough, Disney was also faced the Carr distortion of Kimmel’s remarks as succeeding in whipping up parallel advertiser and Trump-loyalist action. Mind you, this comes after other corporate capitulations where Trump had less leverage, namely his personal attack on new Intel chief Lip-Bu Tan as a Chinese stooge (Tan is in fact Singaporean), which led to the company giving the government a 10% stake.

Democrats are up in arms, but the most they can inflict, at least until the midterms if they manage to claw back a House majority, is a wet noodle lashing:

Nevertheless, when Mayo Pete comes off as sound, you know it’s bad:

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2 comments

  1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

    Is another end goal here to get rid of free, antenna TV altogether?

    Killing Late Night.

    Moving NFL to Streaming.

    Thanks for the post!

    I never liked Jimmy Kimmel anyway but I hear his show threw great live performances for free in LA with his guests often performing 5 songs!

    Reply ↓
  2. Ben Panga

    When the purpose of a media organisation is purely profit, it is easy for the state (or a mob) to apply pressure.

    One more reason I stick to blogs such as this one :)

    Reply ↓

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