Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s comments on the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk weren\u2019t just noxiously offensive and seemingly misleading \u2013 their timing was also incredibly bad.<\/b>
\nJimmy Kimmel\u2019s comments on the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk weren\u2019t just noxiously offensive and seemingly misleading \u2014 their timing was also incredibly bad: They threaten to derail Nexstar\u2019s $6.2 billion takeover of rival broadcaster Tegna, telecom insiders tell On The Money.
The already controversial deal \u2014 which would combine two of the nation\u2019s largest owners of local TV stations \u2014 poses significant antitrust questions and needs a close review by the Federal Communications Commission and its conservative firebrand chairman, Brendan Carr.
Kimmel\u2019s comments made that approval even dicier. That\u2019s why Nexstar publicly announced Thursday that its stations would no longer carry the show, telecom insiders tell On The Money. Ditto for ABC, which produces and distributes \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d to broadcasters like Nexstar \u2014 and likewise has business before the FCC.Here\u2019s the latest on Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s suspension after Charlie Kirk comments
Bob Iger, the CEO of its parent, Disney, was also quick to suspend the show indefinitely.
On Thursday, Sinclair Broadcasting \u2014 a rival local TV giant with a conservative bent \u2014 upped the ante even further, saying ABC\u2019s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel was insufficient and announcing it will yank \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d from its stations until the host apologizes directly to Kirk\u2019s family and donates to his political activist group.
The backdrop to all this is Carr, a longtime telecom lawyer who is the new sheriff of the broadcast industry. Carr has been warning networks large and small that he\u2019s taking one of the most expansionary views of the agency\u2019s regulatory edict to make sure programming is in the \u201cpublic interest,\u201d First Amendment concerns be damned.
His impact has been nothing short of dramatic: Paramount settled a suit with President Trump over CBS\u2019s controversial interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign, fearing that the FCC wouldn\u2019t approve its $8 billion sale to independent studio Skydance.
It also cancelled the late-night show of the money-losing and politically charged comic Steven Colbert.
Other broadcast networks have been settling various lawsuits with Trump \u2013 ABC forking over $16 million to settle a suit with the president over comments made by news host George Stephanopoulos \u2013 to stay on Carr\u2019s good side.
Unlike cable, the FCC has the authority to throttle content that airs on \u201cpublic airwaves\u201d \u2013 aka local TV networks \u2013 by withholding broadcast licenses. That includes local stations owned by the likes of NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox, as well as those that have agreements to run their programming, like Nexstar.
In the past, the FCC has given wide latitude for broadcasters to air anything except obscenity; that\u2019s why people like Steven Colbert, Kimmel and even alleged straight news broadcasts like \u201c60 Minutes\u201d could get away with left-wing commentary despite wide swaths of the country hating those views.
Kimmel\u2019s odd comments on Monday riled Carr not only for mocking conservatives as they mourned Kirk\u2019s assassination, but also seeming to imply a misleading narrative that his assassin was conservative himself: \u201cwe hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.\u201d
Yes that too would have been considered First Amendment protected speech during previous administrations. Carr would argue the constitution\u2019s speech clause isn\u2019t absolute. It only means the government can\u2019t jail Kimmel or Colbert for their opinions.
\u201cCleary Nexstar is sucking up to Carr,\u201d one telecom lawyer told me Wednesday just after the show\u2019s cancellation. \u201cKimmel\u2019s comments are noxious but from a First Amendment standpoint they would have been protected in the past. He\u2019s a comedian, so how is he distorting the news unless you have a deal to be approved by the FCC?\u201d
Either way, it doesn\u2019t mean that the FCC has to grant you a license when it can make a case \u2013 which is what Carr is doing now in the broadcast industry \u2013 that one-sided politics is anathema to the public interest.
As Carr put it in a Wednesday interview with my Fox colleague Sean Hannity: \u201crunning a narrow partisan circus, whatever the public interest means, it\u2019s not that.\u201d
Nexstar is particularly vulnerable to Carr\u2019s public interest interpretation given its plans to expand. It is already one of the biggest owners of ABC affiliate stations carrying Kimmel\u2019s show, controlling more than 30 around the country.
The deal to buy Tegna announced in August would extend the company\u2019s reach even more. Both companies combined would cover 80% of households, operating 265 stations in 44 states. In some markets the new company will control three or four stations.
All of that needs FCC approval.
Reps for Nexstar and the FCC didn\u2019t return a request for comment.<\/p>\n