Disney-owned ABC has taken Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show off air over comments he made about the shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. “Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be pre-empted indefinitely,” a spokesperson for the Disney-owned network said in a statement.
The decision came hours after Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), attacked Kimmel and suggested his agency might take regulatory action against ABC. Though ABC spokespersons did not elaborate on the reason behind the suspension, it came shortly after Nexstar—a media company which operates 32 local ABC affiliate stations and needs FCC approval for an upcoming acquisition deal—said that it would not broadcast the show for the “foreseeable future.”
In his monologue on Monday night, Kimmel said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga Gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Kirk, a Trump ally who co-founded conservative organisation Talking Point USA, was shot dead during a debate at the Utah Valley University on 10 September. The authorities arrested the suspected shooter three days later. The motive behind the assassination, and the killer’s ideology, has been the subject of much speculation over the past week.
Kimmel also poked fun at Trump’s response to a reporter’s question about how he was mourning Kirk’s death, with the President pivoting to praising the under-construction White House ballroom. “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish,” he said.
ABC’s announcement that it was suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! was met with glee from Donald Trump and other conservative political and media figures. Trump called it “great news for America!”, encouraging the NBC network to cancel other late night shows hosted by Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon.
“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Kimmel has ZERO talent.”
But the decision has also concerned free speech advocates, who see it as the latest instance of a prominent Trump critic in the media being silenced. Trump has sued both ABC and CBS over the last year, and he has just filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times just this week. Pressure from the Trump administration, specifically from the FCC, has also been rumoured to have been a prominent factor in CBS’s decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
“Another media outlet withered under government pressure,” free speech advocacy group Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression told The Guardian. “We cannot be a country where late night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president. But until institutions grow a backbone and learn to resist government pressure, that is the country we are.”
The move also sparked concern and alarm among Kimmel’s peers in the media and entertainment industry. Comedian and occasional Daily Show host Michael Kosta wrote on Instagram that “This is a serious moment in American history. TV networks MUST push back. This is complete BS.”
Comedian and actor Wanda Sykes said in a video that Trump “didn’t end the Ukraine War or solve Gaza within his first week, but he did end freedom of speech within his first year. Hey, for those of you who pray, now’s the time to do it. Love you, Jimmy.”
“If you’re a comedian and you don’t call out the insanity of pulling Kimmel off the air – don’t bother spouting off about free speech anymore,” wrote comedian Mike Birbiglia. That sentiment was also echoed by Marc Maron, who called the move “government censorship” and urged people to “organize, speak out, be peaceful, be urgent.”
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