Major media groups plan to keep Kimmel muzzled

The conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or controls 39 ABC affiliates nationwide, is refusing to air new episodes of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after Kimmel’s suspension ended.

“Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming. Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,” Sinclair said in a statement released Monday.

Nexstar Media Group, which owns 32 ABC affiliates, also said on Tuesday that it would keep Kimmel’s show off air. The company led the original campaign to suspend Kimmel’s show and is currently in the process of acquiring Tegna, another media company that owns local television stations.

ABC, which is owned by Disney, said earlier in the day that Kimmel’s program would return on Tuesday night. Following pressure from the Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, ABC announced last week that it had suspended Kimmel.

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Kimmel’s supposed crime was noting that the MAGA movement is “trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” This is precisely what has happened in the days following the Kirk killing, with right-wing figures regularly threatening the left and hoping to seek vengeance.

The right has also attempted to whitewash Kirk’s bigotry and use his death as an excuse for the government to attack the speech of Trump critics.

Disney faced an immediate backlash against the attempt to suppress Kimmel’s voice.

Grassroots campaigns called for the cancellation of Hulu and Disney+ streaming services, which are both owned by Disney. A parade of unions, including the Writer’s Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, the Directors Guild of America, and more spoke out against Disney/ABC. Hundreds of actors, including several of the stars of the Disney-owned Marvel Cinematic Universe, slammed the suppression of speech.

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Kimmel’s high-profile comedian allies, like Jon Stewart and John Oliver, also mocked the corporation for bowing to the Trump administration’s pressure.

Sinclair’s decision to back the administration is part of a long pattern of the company’s conservative advocacy.

Sinclair stations have been used in the past to promote right-wing anti-vaccine talking points, myths about the 2020 presidential election, and years and years of attacks and smears of Democrats and liberal leaders and causes.

In one particularly bizarre episode, Sinclair aired near-daily pro-Trump propaganda from 2017 to 2020 in the form of “must-run” video packages across its stations. Those packages often featured commentary from former Trump campaign staffer Boris Epshteyn.

Sinclair’s “must-run” video packages were lampooned by Oliver in a highly watched 2017 segment of his program “Last Week Tonight,” which dissected the practice of injecting right-wing propaganda in between more standard local news programming.

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