How a network merger raised pressure on ABC

American TV network ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show on Sept 17 after conservatives expressed outrage over a monologue the host had given on Sept 15.

In the monologue, Kimmel said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang 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. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

Kimmel then shows a video clip of US President Donald Trump responding to a reporter’s question outside the White House about how he is holding up after Mr Kirk’s death.

Mr Trump replied: “I think very good. And, by the way, right there, you see all the trucks and they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.”

“On Sept 19, the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this,” Kimmel continued.

“Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief. Construction, demolition, construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish, okay?”

Kimmel’s monologue sparked the latest flashpoint over what constitutes free speech in America, and the debate over what is off-limits has continued to grow since.

But behind the abrupt programming decision was another display of how influential members of the Trump administration have become in shaping how media companies operate without any need to impose sweeping new policies.

In this case, a broadcaster that is pursuing a US$6 billion (S$7.71 billion) merger with one of its competitors put pressure on ABC – following a suggestion by the chair of the Federal Communications Commission to do so – before its parent company, Disney, announced its decision to suspend Kimmel’s show.

Hours before ABC made the announcement, FCC chair Brendan Carr said on a right-wing podcast that local ABC stations should “push back” and “preempt” coverage that does not serve “their local communities”. (Preempting, in broadcast terms, refers to replacing programming with another show in advance of its airing.)

Mr Carr also told the podcast host Benny Johnson that the FCC might take action against ABC.

“When you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action frankly on Kimmel or you know there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead...”

“I think that it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, ‘Listen, we are going to preempt.’”

After the podcast interview, Nexstar, which owns 32 ABC affiliate stations, announced that it would “preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the foreseeable future”, and added: “Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk.”

Nexstar has good reason to try to appease the FCC at the moment: In August, the company announced that it intended to buy one of its competitors, Tegna, which owns 13 ABC affiliate stations. But in order for the deal to go through, Mr Carr and the FCC would have to not only approve it, but also potentially raise the nationwide cap on the percentage of households a single entity’s television stations are allowed to reach.

Broadcasters have pushed the government for decades to raise or repeal the cap, which is currently set at 39 per cent. If the Nexstar-Tegna deal goes through, Nexstar’s reach is likely to exceed the limit.

Shortly after Nexstar’s announcement, Sinclair, a company that owns 31 ABC affiliate stations, said it would also suspend Kimmel’s programme. Of ABC’s 205 affiliate stations, 63 are owned by Nexstar and Sinclair, and another 13 are owned by Tegna. Together, they make up about 37 per cent of all of ABC’s local affiliates.

Minutes after Nexstar’s announcement, and just hours after Mr Carr’s podcast appearance, ABC announced that it was suspending Kimmel’s programme “indefinitely”.

It was unclear how big a role, if any, the plans for preempting by Nexstar played in Disney’s decision. (Sinclair did not publicly announce that it would also preempt the programme until after Disney’s decision was made public.)

“I want to thank Nexstar for doing the right thing,” Mr Carr said.

This was not ABC’s first brush with Mr Trump, who sued the company’s news division for defamation in 2024. ABC settled with the president in December, a rare and significant concession by a major news organisation as the president grew increasingly antagonistic towards media he viewed as critical of him and his allies.

As the outrage over Kimmel’s comments grew, Disney CEO Bob Iger, along with a close lieutenant, had been hearing from worried advertisers, people familiar with the decision told The New York Times this week.

Before Kimmel’s show was set to begin taping on Sept 17, the people familiar with Disney’s decision said, executives had grown concerned that another opening monologue could further inflame the situation. So they made the call for the show to go dark – at least temporarily. NYTIMES