President Donald Trump celebrated Disney-owned ABC’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Dwell! after Wednesday night time, congratulating ABC on “finally having the courage to do what needs to be done.” Trump additionally posted on his platform, incorrectly, that Kimmel’s present had been “cancelled.” The president continued posting, indicating he needs to reshape late-night TV.
Trump used the suspension – which occurred after an ABC affiliate revolt over Kimmel’s criticisms of conservatives’ response to the assassination of activist Charlie Kirk – to double down on his feud with late-night tv broadly, focusing on Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers as “two total losers.”
“Their ratings are also horrible,” Trump posted on his platform, TruthSocial. “Do it NBC!!!”
However Robert Thompson of Syracuse College, a extensively cited multimedia and downright leisure savant, advised Fortune the suspension can’t be defined by rankings alone.
“You don’t pull a midweek show that’s already booked because of ratings,” he stated. “That’s not how networks operate.”
Regardless of Trump’s name, the transfer to tug Kimmel off the air was not only a community resolution: it was pushed by a revolt from Nexstar and Sinclair, firms that management dozens of ABC affiliate stations, solely hours after Kimmel’s controversial present aired. Disney-owned ABC responded by suspending Jimmy Kimmel Dwell! Indefinitely.
“This was one of the fastest exertions of station power I’ve ever seen,” Thompson stated. “Back in the NYPD Blue days, some affiliates refused to air it, but ABC kept the show going. This time, ABC pulled the plug itself.”
Federal Communications Fee (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr described the associates’ refusal to air Kimmel’s program as a “turning point” for legacy media.
“This action today by Nexstar and Sinclair, frankly, it’s unprecedented,” Carr stated on Hannity Wednesday. “I can’t imagine another time when we’ve had local broadcasters tell a national programmer like Disney that your content no longer meets the needs and the values of our community.”
“Any license granted by us at the FCC comes with an obligation to operate in the public interest,” Carr stated, including that Kimmel’s remarks about Kirk’s suspected killer appeared like an “intentional effort to mislead the American people.”
Kimmel confronted backlash after his Sept. 15 episode, the place he stated, amongst different issues, “[w]e 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.”
Trump seizes alternative to broaden his feud
Trump has lengthy hated many late-night discuss present hosts, who’ve made him the butt of their joke-filled monologues for years. In August, Trump had dismissed Stephen Colbert as “talentless” shortly earlier than CBS canceled The Late Present with Stephen Colbert after a decade-long run.
Kimmel, going through weak rankings, was himself on borrowed time; his cope with ABC solely runs till 2026. Not like NBC, which has locked in Fallon and Meyers via 2028, Disney had but to make a name on Kimmel’s future, despite the fact that Jimmy Kimmel Dwell! has lengthy doubled as a worthwhile advertising and marketing engine for Marvel, Star Wars, and different studio tentpoles.
Starting of the tip for late night time?
The simultaneous political crackdown and company consolidation have left late night time—a bedrock of American TV for 70 years—at an inflection level.
“Networks seem to have no appetite for the kind of aggressive, political comedy that’s dominated the last 25 years,” Thompson stated. “We may be coming full circle, back to a Carson-style, harmless late night—with NBC the last one standing.”
That would depart Seth Meyers in a precarious spot.
“He’s got to tread very carefully,” Thompson warned. “Does he serve his fans and risk becoming the third casualty, or soften and alienate them? There’s no good option.”
However their comedy now performs out beneath a shadow: Trump’s assaults, the FCC’s scrutiny, and associates’ newfound willingness to defy nationwide networks. Collectively, they recommend a shifting media panorama—one the place late night time might not be protected floor for comedians to check even their wildest materials.
Not like Fallon, who has a much less aggressive comedic model, Meyers is all of the sudden alone among the many extra aggressively political late-night hosts. He’s in a no-win bind, Thompson stated: if he retains doing sharp anti-Trump comedy, he might effectively be the subsequent casualty. But when he softens his jokes, he’ll alienate the very viewers that he’s constructed.
“I would hate to be Seth Meyers right now,” Thompson stated.
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