Nextstar Confirms It Will Continue To Preempt 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' Despite Disney Bringing The Show Back Tonight
Nexstar announced that its ABC affiliated television stations will continue to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! despite Disney’s decision to begin airing the show again starting tonight.
In a press release, Nexstar announced, “Nexstar Media Group, Inc. today announced that the company’s owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network will continue to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
It added, “We made a decision last week to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s ‘ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse. We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve. In the meantime, we note that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will be available nationwide on multiple Disney-owned streaming products, while our stations will focus on continuing to produce local news and other programming relevant to their respective markets.”
Nexstar joins Sinclair in preempting the show. Sinclair shared last night it would continue to preempt the show as well. In a post to X the company wrote, “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.”
These announcements come after Disney announced that the show would return to air tonight September 23rd. A spokesman stated, “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
The company had previously pulled Kimmel off air after he lied about Charlie Kirk’s assassin and claimed he was a MAGA activist. Kimmel 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.”
The assassin had already been identified as Tyler Robinson and Utah governor Spencer Cox noted, “There clearly was a leftist ideology with this assassin.” Additionally, he had revealed that Robinson’s roommate was his boyfriend who was transitioning from male to female, “We do know that the roommate that we originally talked about, we can confirm that that roommate is a boyfriend, who is transitioning from male to female. So we know that piece.”
I approve of NextStar's decision.
It is encouraging to see Nextstar and Sinclair sticking to their original actions.