Viewers in the US markets over 60 were unable to watch “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday night. – His first show after a week-long suspension by Disney – at his local ABC station. Kimmel Boycotts clearly drove many fans in those regions to watch his monologue on YouTube in a boycott by two big TV station groups, Sinclair and Nexstar. This became the most watched video in 2025, the most watched show on the platform to date.
On the surface, Sinclair and the Nexter refuse to broadcast “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”. In protest of the comments, Kimmel made the murderer of Charlie Kirk last week. (Sinclair and Nexstar instead aired news programming on the ABC station in the late-night time slot.) This has a plot line under discussion. FCC Chairman Brendanker wants to promote the efforts of local television stations to backtrack liberal programming. “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has been cancelled. Critics cried out a foul — accusing him of trying to stop his speech, saying he didn’t like him and the Trump administration. Both Nexstar and Sinclair want to lift the FCC’s 39% TV station ownership cap rule. Nexstar’s $6.2 billion proposed Tegna Takeover requires FCC approval and change of ownership cap. Ergo, the obvious conclusion is that those companies want to get the good bounty of Car.
Whatever the motivations of Sinclair and Nexter, here’s the question for now: And who should lose from Disney and ABC, or Sinclair and the Nexter?
On Wednesday, Nexstar said it continues to rate the status of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” On local TV stations affiliated with ABC, the show engages in productive discussions with executives at Walt Disney Company, focusing on reflecting and respecting the diverse interests of the communities we serve.
For now, the length of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is unknown. It will air on Sinclair’s 38 ABC affiliate and Nexstar’s 32 ABC stations. Nexstar hasn’t said what will happen after Wednesday. Sinclair officials mentioned the September 23rd statement saying they would be ahead of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from Tuesday night. Throughout ABC’s affiliate stations, “there is a discussion with ABC in assessing the potential returns of the show.” A Disney spokesman declined to comment.
But even if Kimmel Blackout by the station group had grown for a year, the financial impact on Disney, Nexuster and Sinclair would be “negligible,” according to Matt Dulgin, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, a Wall Street research firm.
If two station groups, which account for around 25% of US television viewers, preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, “Bottom Line, Disney will only run millions of dollars,” according to Dolgin, for the next 12 months. For the media giant (revenue of $91.4 billion in 2024), it’s almost no rounding error. Dolgin estimates that Nexstar and Sinclair collectively earn less than $10 million in annual advertising revenue from Kimmel.
“Disney will be fine either way, so I don’t expect station owners to push this forward,” Dolgin says. “More importantly, it’s the relationship between Disney and the owners of these stations, and for me, Disney holds all the leverage.” The analyst says that both station groups have affiliate agreements in 2026 that will expire Disney.
For Disney, what also limits the financial fallout of the Sinclair-Nexter conflict is that ABC has stations owned and operated in four of its five largest markets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth and Philadelphia.
Of the ABC affiliates operated by Nexstar and Sinclair, ABC affiliates in the top 20 markets of Sinclair’s WJLA in Washington, DC and Sinclair’s WJLA in Komo in Seattle. “Kimmel’s rating seems to be low in a market that is generally Republican-leaning, where NextStar and Sinclair have ABC affiliates,” says Morningstar’s Dolgin. Nexstar stations belonging to ABC include KTVX (Salt Lake City), WGNO (New Orleans), WTEN (Albany, New York), WSYR (Syracuse, New York), WKRN (Nashville, Tennessee), WATE (Knoxville, Tennessee), WOTV (Battle Creek, whtm (richmond, harrisubrg). Va.), WJGF (Augusta, Georgia), Ktka (Topeka, Kansas) and WTNH (Hartford New Haven, Connecticut). Other Sinclair ABC stations include KDNL (St. Louis), KATV (Little Rock, Ark), KTUL (Tulsa, Oklahoma), WTVC (Chattanooga, Tennessee), and WCIV (Charleston, South Carolina).
The risk for station groups that have chosen to engage in the long-term blackouts of Kimmel’s show is that “people are either engraved because they want to see Kimmel, or blocking such specific content is inscribed because they speak to the First Amendment,” says Professor Daniro Yanich of the University of Delaware and Professor Daniro Yanich of the University of Delaware, who focuses on public policy research.
The pushbacks from Sinclair and Nexstar’s ABC market audience, as well as the perception that companies are counsing with the FCC Chair’s anti-liberal ideology, can be a factor in tolerance for businesses. “There’s an FCC chair that works in a way we’ve never seen before. He’s openly partisan and says that the function of the FCC is to support the president’s policies,” Yanich says.
However, Sinclair and Disney may find it difficult to agree on the future path. The station group owner said before Kimmel was broadcast, the host must apologise to Kirk’s family and send it to Turning Point USA as a “meaningful personal donation.” This doesn’t seem to be a starter at Kimmel and Disney camp.
If Disney chooses not to renew its ABC partnership deal with Sinclair or Nexstar, it becomes a “nuclear choice,” Yanich says. The wildcard here is that if the FCC raises or eliminates its 39% ownership cap, it could become a much larger group of television stations with more leverage in its talk with Disney. “Integration is power. The FCC is poised to remove broadcast ownership restrictions,” Yanich says.
According to Dolgin, Disney will be hit financially if it chooses not to renew its ABC partnership agreement with Nexstar and Sinclair. In fact, if Disney doesn’t secure new affiliate transactions in these markets, it could potentially reach the US-wide with content via streaming services and cable networks. What Disney and ABC take is a disruptive action and is not a preferred option, thwarting the way Broadcast TV Biz has been working since its inception. But traditional television has slowly been shrinking for years. Disney can also drive more revenue with streaming services (Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN Unlimited).
In contrast, sales of Nexstar and Sinclair “rely entirely rely on broadcast linear television shows, so maintaining affiliation is existential.” In 2024, ABC affiliates accounted for 27% of Sinclair’s total advertising revenue. Nexstar has not disclosed revenue due to network affiliation, but 19% of the Big Four partnership (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) is at ABC.
See also: The FCC is happy as Nexstar and Sinclair play Disney in Jimmy Kimmel, but will it backfire?
