Jimmy Kimmel’s show to return to ABC on Sept 23 after suspension over Charlie Kirk remarks

Jimmy Kimmel is coming back.

ABC said on Sept 22 that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would return on Sept 23, ending an impasse that began last week.

“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,” Walt Disney Co, which owns ABC, said in a statement.

“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.”

Disney did not say whether all ABC affiliates, some of which baulked at carrying Jimmy Kimmel Live! last week, would carry Sept 23’s show.

The network had removed Kimmel “indefinitely” after a top Trump administration regulator and many conservatives said he inaccurately described the politics of

the man accused of fatally shooting right-wing activist Charlie Kirk

.

The subsequent suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! almost immediately morphed into a flashpoint for free speech in America.

ABC pulled the show just hours after Mr Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said on a podcast that Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people”, and that the agency was “going to have remedies that we can look at”.

“Frankly, when you see stuff like this – I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr Carr told the podcast’s host Benny Johnson.

Kimmel had planned to address the growing firestorm during his opening monologue for the Sept 17 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!

But after senior Disney executives – including chief executive Bob Iger and head of television Dana Walden – reviewed his planned remarks, they worried his monologue would make the situation worse, and decided to bench him and his show instead.

Disney did not publicly explain its decision at the time, and Kimmel has not commented publicly on the show’s suspension.

Conversations between Disney and Kimmel to return his show to the air formally began on Sept 18, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

Mr Iger, Ms Walden and Mr Rob Mills, the ABC executive who directly oversees the show, met Kimmel at the office of his lawyer Andy Galker, in the Century City neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

Kimmel’s manager James Dixon participated in the meeting via a video call.

The session ended without Kimmel agreeing to changes in the monologue he had planned to deliver on Sept 17, which had sought to clarify his earlier commentary, but also punched back against figures on the right who he believed had misrepresented those comments.

Mr Iger and Ms Walden continued to communicate with Kimmel throughout the weekend, the two people said.

An agreement about when to bring the show back, and what Kimmel would say upon his return, was made on the morning of Sept 22.

A representative for Kimmel did not respond to requests for comment.

It is still unclear whether Nexstar and Sinclair – two major television operators that own many ABC affiliates and have vowed to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel Live! in the aftermath of his comments – will air future episodes of the show.

Sinclair and Nexstar control just over 20 per cent of ABC affiliates combined, according to BIA Advisory Services, a research firm.

Representatives for Nexstar and Sinclair did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The imbroglio began on Sept 15, when Kimmel used his opening monologue to say “the Maga (Make America Great Again) gang” was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it”.

Conservatives pounced, saying the comments mischaracterised the political beliefs of Tyler Robinson, the accused shooter.

Prosecutors have said that Robinson objected to Mr Kirk’s “hatred”, but the authorities have not said which of Mr Kirk’s views Robinson had found hateful.

Robinson’s mother said her son had recently shifted towards the political left and become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented”.

In the days since ABC’s decision, at least five Hollywood unions, collectively representing more than 400,000 workers, publicly condemned the company.

The screenwriters’ union decried what they called “corporate cowardice”, and organised a protest last week outside the main gate at Disney headquarters in Burbank, California.

Damon Lindelof, a creator of ABC’s Lost, said that if Kimmel’s programme did not return from suspension, he couldn’t “in good conscience work for the company that imposed it”.

Mr Michael Eisner, a former chief executive of Disney, issued a rare rebuke on social media on Sept 19 as well.

Some conservatives expressed misgivings too.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz likened Mr Carr’s comments to those of a mob boss, arguing that his comments to potentially retaliate against media companies were “dangerous as hell”.

“I like Brendan Carr, but we should not be in this business,” Mr Cruz said on his podcast last week. “We should denounce it.”

Disney also came under pressure from its customers, some of whom cancelled Disney+ subscriptions and Disney World vacations in protest.

Mr Carr, for his part, used an appearance in Manhattan before Disney’s announcement on Sept 22 to try to minimise his role in the events that led to Kimmel’s suspension.

He said Disney had merely made a “business decision” in response to feedback from viewers and affiliates, and argued that Democrats’ claims of undue government pressure were “a campaign of projection and distortion”.

“Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he’s in because of his ratings, not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Mr Carr said.

Ratings for Jimmy Kimmel Live! played no role in Disney’s decision-making, according to the two people briefed on the matter.

Ms Anna M. Gomez, the sole Democratic commissioner of the FCC, has rejected Mr Carr’s argument that ABC was only making a “business decision”.

In social media posts on Sept 22, she wrote that “this regrettable chapter is a stain on the FCC”, and applauded Kimmel’s reinstatement, saying that Disney found “its courage in the face of clear government intimidation”.

Kimmel’s return on Sept 23 will make for one of the most anticipated episodes of a late-night television show in years.

Over the past few days, many other late-night hosts – including Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers – used their shows and platforms to strongly speak out against Kimmel’s temporary removal. NYTIMES