ABC announced Wednesday that it's suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! over comments the host made about MAGA trying to capitalize on Charlie Kirk's death—which sparked a reaction that included Nexstar saying it would stop carrying the late-night show on its 28 affiliates and the FCC chairman calling on stations to pressure the network. The program will be "pre-empted indefinitely," an ABC spokesman said, per the Hollywood Reporter. Like Paramount, which announced while seeking a merger approval that it will end Stephen Colbert's CBS show in May, Nexstar wants the FCC to allow its $6.2 billion acquisition of TEGNA.
On Monday's show, Jimmy Kimmel had said, "We 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." Appearing on a podcast on Wednesday, Carr said affiliates should "push back" on ABC and say, in effect, "Listen, we're not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we're running the possibility of license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion."
Carr, who was appointed by President Trump, also suggested that ABC affiliates who keep carrying Kimmel could lose their licenses, per the Los Angeles Times. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr said on Benny Johnson's podcast, per the Washington Post. Carr also said he could "certainly see a path forward for suspension" of Kimmel by ABC, something the FCC would have no legal role in. Later in the day, after ABC's announcement, Carr told the Reporter, "I want to thank Nexstar for doing the right thing," adding that he hopes other broadcasters "follow Nexstar's lead."
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