From Variety:
Disney’s ABC said it would take Jimmy Kimmel‘s popular late-night show off its schedule “indefinitely” after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the U.S., Nexstar Media, said it would pre-empt airings of the program following remarks the host made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk… The company said it “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming…”
In his monologue Monday night , Kimmel said that the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points off Kirk’s murder… “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said.
Well, shit. This could get ugly. Just before Disney’s decision, FCC chair Brendan Carr said Kimmel’s statements were “some of the sickest conduct possible” and his agency had a “strong case” for holding the company accountable for trying to “lie to the American people” about a major news story. “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” he continued. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Carr added that he wanted to “reinvigorate” the FCC’s “public interest standard.” He listed people like Joy Ann Reid, Stephen Colbert, and Terry Moran, noted that Donald Trump successfully ran against such legacy media figures, and that “their grip on the narrative is slipping.” Still, he said, the FCC still needs to make sure firms leasing public airwaves uphold their public interest obligation.
Of all the network late night acts, Kimmel’s was the most vicious and unredeeming, continually hitting new lows during the pandemic in particular, with the aforementioned AntiVax Barbie and his “Rest in Peace, Wheezy” monologue sure to go down as cultural anti-landmarks. Virtually everything he said in the Trump era was DNC messaging with a punchline, putting him on course to spend the afterlife doing laps in media hell with Keith Olbermann. With his ratings in freefall, Disney was going to drop the axe sooner or later.
But acting so quickly after Carr’s “easy way or the hard way” line opens a can of worms. Now the organic demise of legacy media (definitely happening, and at lightning speed too) can’t be an unmuddied story. What Carr described would reimagine the FCC as a press regulator in a full-on truth-arbiter role, in the spirit of Britain’s hated OfCom. That feels like a big jump from where the Administration was in February, when J.D. Vance lambasted Europeans in Munich for losing sight of basic tenets of democracy, including the “freedom… to make mistakes.” Either way, wild news; Walter and I will talk it through on the next America This Week.
John Adams said that our system only worked for a “moral and religious people”. Jimmy Kimmel is showing us what happens when we don’t have that.
And the award for best visual of the year goes to;
"Doing laps in media helll with Keith Olberman."
Out of the park greatness, Matt.