{"id":133966,"date":"2025-09-26T06:58:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/09\/26\/the-right-wing-zealots-at-sinclair-nexstar-push-their-luck-refuse-to-put-jimmy-kimmel-back-on-the-air\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T06:58:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:58:04","slug":"the-right-wing-zealots-at-sinclair-nexstar-push-their-luck-refuse-to-put-jimmy-kimmel-back-on-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/09\/26\/the-right-wing-zealots-at-sinclair-nexstar-push-their-luck-refuse-to-put-jimmy-kimmel-back-on-the-air\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right-Wing Zealots At Sinclair & Nexstar Push Their Luck, Refuse To Put Jimmy Kimmel Back On The Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

The flood of outrage at the Disney\/FCC cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel ultimately\u00a0forced the company to retreat<\/a>\u00a0and put Kimmel back on the air. Disney apparently didn\u2019t much like the wave of folks cancelling their Disney+ streaming video subscriptions in response to the government and a major corporation coordinating a frontal assault on the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Some insiders at Disney indicated that Disney had a planned Disney+ price hike coming this week, and executives worried the backlash to both was going to cause significant financial harm to their quarterly numbers, as revealed by independent journalist Marisa Kabas.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

SCOOP \u2014 Part of the reason Disney\/ABC may have rushed to sort things out with Kimmel is because tomorrow they have a planned price increase for Disney+ streaming, a Disney source tells me. With subscriptions hemorrhaging since last week, they couldn\u2019t risk losing more users with this announcement.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-09-22T22:20:12.473Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Indeed, on Tuesday morning\u00a0the price hike<\/a>\u00a0was confirmed.<\/p>\n

Local ABC broadcast affiliate owner Sinclair Broadcasting, however, appears intent on pushing its luck. We\u2019ve long pointed out how the right-wing broadcaster is basically GOP propaganda pretending to be local news. The company has an extended history of kissing Trump\u2019s ass, airing all kinds of\u00a0pro-Trump propaganda<\/a>\u00a0(the company\u2019s infamous\u00a0\u201cmust run\u201d segments<\/a>), and is\u00a0often cozy<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0white nationalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sinclair\u00a0says it will continue to \u201cpre-empt\u201d Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/a>\u00a0as some sort of misguided punishment for Kimmel\u2019s (fairly tame) criticism of their beloved President:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cBeginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting\u00a0Jimmy Kimmel Live!\u00a0across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming.\u00a0Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show\u2019s potential return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Soon after Sinclair\u2019s announcement, Nexstar followed suit and\u00a0said it would also not show<\/a>\u00a0Kimmel\u2019s show despite the high ratings it was guaranteed to get last night.<\/p>\n

Sinclair owns 39 ABC-affiliated stations across the country, including WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C. The company, along with the nation\u2019s other major right-wing local broadcaster, Nexstar, originally demanded Kimmel issue an apology (for doing nothing really wrong), and donate to Charlie Kirk\u2019s right-wing outreach (and dim college kid disinformation project), Turning Point USA.<\/p>\n

Nexstar is pushing for Trump FCC approval of a $6.2 billion deal merger with Tegna, which is part of\u00a0a massive new wave of harmful media consolidation under Trump 2.0<\/a>. The Kimmel saga began when FCC boss Brendan Carr, once again abused the agency\u2019s regulatory approval powers to convince Sinclair and Nexstar that pre-empting Kimmel for criticizing the President\u00a0would be in their best interests<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s clearly an illegal government effort to cancel free speech, and Disney has paid the price already. The censorship effort saw widespread, bipartisan backlash, including (somewhat surprisingly) from the likes of\u00a0Senators Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell, and former Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson<\/a>. They\u2019re at least aware enough to know that this sort of abuse of government power could inevitably be turned against\u00a0them<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Sinclair likely still believes that pushing its luck and continuing to \u201cpre-empt\u201d Kimmel gives them additional leeway within the Trump administration, cements their power in the right-wing propaganda ecosystem, and makes merger approval more likely. But that\u2019s going to come with an obvious ratings cost, and any costs incurred by those identifying Sinclair stations and contacting their advertisers to complain in the weeks to come:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Ultimately Sinclair and Nexstar may get more harmful media consolidation approved, but it\u2019s likely going to be more trouble than it was worth. The MAGA set clearly thinks they can exploit Charlie Kirk\u2019s death to escalate their war on their ideological enemies, but having been pickled in their own propaganda, one gets the sense they\u2019re\u00a0really not tuned into how violently unpopular their \u201cmovement\u201d is becoming<\/a>\u00a0(something set to get worse as the impacts of things like tariffs, the\u00a0elimination of all corporate oversight<\/a>, and the evisceration of the social safety net begin to arrive in concussive waves).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, local broadcast television was also\u00a0already seeing steady viewership declines as their mostly older audience dies off<\/a>; advertising yourself as a bunch of weird censorial zealots engaged in fake journalism in service to an unpopular idiot king isn\u2019t likely to help the company make inroads with a younger target demographic essential for the company\u2019s longer term survival.<\/p>\n

The Right-Wing Zealots At Sinclair & Nexstar Push Their Luck, Refuse To Put Jimmy Kimmel Back On The Air<\/a><\/p>\n

More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

DHS Demands Media, Politicians Stop Being So Mean To ICE<\/a>
Secret Service Dubiously Claims, Without Evidence, To Have Uncovered \u2018Hidden Telecom Network\u2019 That Could Have Crippled NYC, UN<\/a>
Hey, Nintendo: You Cool With ICE Using Your Pok\u00e9mon IP To Recruit More Goons?<\/a><\/p>\n

The post The Right-Wing Zealots At Sinclair & Nexstar Push Their Luck, Refuse To Put Jimmy Kimmel Back On The Air<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The flood of outrage at the Disney\/FCC cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel ultimately\u00a0forced the company to retreat<\/a>\u00a0and put Kimmel back on the air. Disney apparently didn\u2019t much like the wave of folks cancelling their Disney+ streaming video subscriptions in response to the government and a major corporation coordinating a frontal assault on the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Some insiders at Disney indicated that Disney had a planned Disney+ price hike coming this week, and executives worried the backlash to both was going to cause significant financial harm to their quarterly numbers, as revealed by independent journalist Marisa Kabas.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

SCOOP \u2014 Part of the reason Disney\/ABC may have rushed to sort things out with Kimmel is because tomorrow they have a planned price increase for Disney+ streaming, a Disney source tells me. With subscriptions hemorrhaging since last week, they couldn\u2019t risk losing more users with this announcement.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-09-22T22:20:12.473Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Indeed, on Tuesday morning\u00a0the price hike<\/a>\u00a0was confirmed.<\/p>\n

Local ABC broadcast affiliate owner Sinclair Broadcasting, however, appears intent on pushing its luck. We\u2019ve long pointed out how the right-wing broadcaster is basically GOP propaganda pretending to be local news. The company has an extended history of kissing Trump\u2019s ass, airing all kinds of\u00a0pro-Trump propaganda<\/a>\u00a0(the company\u2019s infamous\u00a0\u201cmust run\u201d segments<\/a>), and is\u00a0often cozy<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0white nationalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sinclair\u00a0says it will continue to \u201cpre-empt\u201d Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/a>\u00a0as some sort of misguided punishment for Kimmel\u2019s (fairly tame) criticism of their beloved President:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cBeginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting\u00a0Jimmy Kimmel Live!\u00a0across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming.\u00a0Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show\u2019s potential return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Soon after Sinclair\u2019s announcement, Nexstar followed suit and\u00a0said it would also not show<\/a>\u00a0Kimmel\u2019s show despite the high ratings it was guaranteed to get last night.<\/p>\n

Sinclair owns 39 ABC-affiliated stations across the country, including WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C. The company, along with the nation\u2019s other major right-wing local broadcaster, Nexstar, originally demanded Kimmel issue an apology (for doing nothing really wrong), and donate to Charlie Kirk\u2019s right-wing outreach (and dim college kid disinformation project), Turning Point USA.<\/p>\n

Nexstar is pushing for Trump FCC approval of a $6.2 billion deal merger with Tegna, which is part of\u00a0a massive new wave of harmful media consolidation under Trump 2.0<\/a>. The Kimmel saga began when FCC boss Brendan Carr, once again abused the agency\u2019s regulatory approval powers to convince Sinclair and Nexstar that pre-empting Kimmel for criticizing the President\u00a0would be in their best interests<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s clearly an illegal government effort to cancel free speech, and Disney has paid the price already. The censorship effort saw widespread, bipartisan backlash, including (somewhat surprisingly) from the likes of\u00a0Senators Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell, and former Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson<\/a>. They\u2019re at least aware enough to know that this sort of abuse of government power could inevitably be turned against\u00a0them<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Sinclair likely still believes that pushing its luck and continuing to \u201cpre-empt\u201d Kimmel gives them additional leeway within the Trump administration, cements their power in the right-wing propaganda ecosystem, and makes merger approval more likely. But that\u2019s going to come with an obvious ratings cost, and any costs incurred by those identifying Sinclair stations and contacting their advertisers to complain in the weeks to come:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Ultimately Sinclair and Nexstar may get more harmful media consolidation approved, but it\u2019s likely going to be more trouble than it was worth. The MAGA set clearly thinks they can exploit Charlie Kirk\u2019s death to escalate their war on their ideological enemies, but having been pickled in their own propaganda, one gets the sense they\u2019re\u00a0really not tuned into how violently unpopular their \u201cmovement\u201d is becoming<\/a>\u00a0(something set to get worse as the impacts of things like tariffs, the\u00a0elimination of all corporate oversight<\/a>, and the evisceration of the social safety net begin to arrive in concussive waves).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, local broadcast television was also\u00a0already seeing steady viewership declines as their mostly older audience dies off<\/a>; advertising yourself as a bunch of weird censorial zealots engaged in fake journalism in service to an unpopular idiot king isn\u2019t likely to help the company make inroads with a younger target demographic essential for the company\u2019s longer term survival.<\/p>\n

The Right-Wing Zealots At Sinclair & Nexstar Push Their Luck, Refuse To Put Jimmy Kimmel Back On The Air<\/a><\/p>\n

More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

DHS Demands Media, Politicians Stop Being So Mean To ICE<\/a>
Secret Service Dubiously Claims, Without Evidence, To Have Uncovered \u2018Hidden Telecom Network\u2019 That Could Have Crippled NYC, UN<\/a>
Hey, Nintendo: You Cool With ICE Using Your Pok\u00e9mon IP To Recruit More Goons?<\/a><\/p>\n

The post The Right-Wing Zealots At Sinclair & Nexstar Push Their Luck, Refuse To Put Jimmy Kimmel Back On The Air<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The flood of outrage at the Disney\/FCC cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel ultimately\u00a0forced the company to retreat\u00a0and put Kimmel back on the air. Disney apparently didn\u2019t much like the wave of folks cancelling their Disney+ streaming video subscriptions in response to the government and a major corporation coordinating a frontal assault on the First Amendment. Some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":133967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bafkreibsdkuv5fer2itdur7kuaqd5bug54463yzvo26brzjxllaiwiyjpa-GbRONW.jpg?fit=853%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}