Nexstar, the owner of the country’s largest station, denied pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Thursday. It will be broadcast under pressure from FCC Chairman Brendan Kerr.
The company announced its decision after Kerr threatened to take action against ABC affiliates over Kimmel’s comments on Charlie Kirk’s murderer. Kerr also urged affiliates to stay ahead of the show.
When asked whether Nexstar’s decision was somehow affected by Carr’s remarks, Gary Weitman, the company’s chief communications officer, said “No.”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was unilaterally created by a senior Nexstar team of executives, and there was no communication with the FCC or government agencies before making that decision,” Weitman said.
Nexstar requires FCC approval to acquire Tegna, the fourth largest broadcasting station. This requires the station to raise the ownership cap that allows broadcasters to reach less than 39% of national audiences. Wightman also denied that Kimmel’s decision was affected by the pending merger.
ABC suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely on Thursday after it said it would not air other station owners Nexstar and Sinclair. The controversy comes from Kimmel’s monologue on Monday, in which the “Magagang” is “trying to characterize the child who killed Charlie Kirk as something other than them and do everything he can to score political points from there,” he said.
Conservatives accused Kimmel of misbehaving the Maga movement of Kirk’s death, despite evidence and official statements that the killer holds “left ideology.”
Caer, who appeared on Benny Johnson’s podcast, called Kimmel’s comments “sick” and suggested that the FCC take action against licensees if Disney did not oppose Kimmel.
Legal experts on Thursday said Kerr could have crossed the line.
“You can’t threaten people,” said Ashutosh Bagwat, a professor at UC Davis Law School. “As long as Chairman Kerr threatened his Yank license, it’s unconstitutional because he didn’t like what Jimmy Kimmel did.”
But if the station group preempts the show himself, he added, “It’s fine. That’s not a national action.”
The Supreme Court addressed the government’s “jaw jaw” issue in a case filed last year by the National Rifle Association.
“Government officials can freely share her opinion and criticize certain beliefs, and she can force her to do so, hoping to persuade others to follow her lead,” Judge Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the unanimous court. “But what she can’t do is use the power of the state to punish or suppress unfavourable expressions.”
But the practical question is that it is very difficult for the ABC to go to court to stop the Trump administration from applying economic pressure, said Derek Bambauer, a law professor at the University of Florida.
“We believe the administration has a powerful weapon in performing cost calculations against targets of political rage,” Bambauer said. “The FCC has very good knowledge of the complex tasks of the broadcast television market. If ABC can cause problems for those who need to stay happy, then there is no need to threaten ABC. It’s a very sophisticated technique.”
Since last December, Kerr has been trying to drive a wedge between the national network and local affiliates. In a letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger, Kerr argued that the local station is much more trusted than national news. He also suggested that ABC was trying to extract troublesome concessions from its affiliates.
In an interview with Johnson’s podcast, Kerr returned to the subject and stated that it was past time for local stations to “step up” and reject national programming that doesn’t meet FCC licensees’ “public interest” standards.
“One of the things we’re trying to do is to make sure these local stations can serve their community,” he said. “The public interest means that you can’t run a narrow partisan circus.”
Nexstar broadcast president Andrew Alford said Thursday that the company’s 32 ABC affiliates will pull Kimmel’s show “Let Cooler Heads will win.”
Meanwhile, Sinclair apologized to Kimmel to Kirk’s family, calling on Turning Point USA to make a donation, saying he wouldn’t carry the show until he was convinced that the standards were in place for national broadcasters.
One longtime industry insider said the station group’s actions were “transparent, selfish and self-directed.”
“This is a Craven Tradeoff Signal to Carr/Trump for Property Rules Reform,” and other issues said, “in exchange for engulfing in the initial abandonment of amendment protection.”
