Jimmy Kimmel is again! (With an asterisk.) After yesterday’s announcement that the late night time host and his “Jimmy Kimmel Stay!” would return to the airwaves this night after Kimmel’s “indefinite” suspension within the wake of feedback made about Charlie Kirk final week (all instructed: solely three episodes have been cancelled), we’ve obtained a caveat.
Whereas “Jimmy Kimmel Stay!” will return Tuesday night time, September 23, as The Walt Disney Firm introduced on Monday, NBC Information experiences that “Sinclair, an organization that operates greater than 35 ABC associates throughout the U.S., mentioned that it will change Kimmel with information programming.”
“Starting Tuesday night time, Sinclair shall be preempting ‘Jimmy Kimmel Stay!’ throughout our ABC affiliate stations and changing it with information programming. Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we consider the present’s potential return,” Sinclair mentioned in a press release.
Final week, native affiliate corporations Nexstar and Sinclair kicked off a firestorm once they said that they’d not air “Jimmy Kimmel Stay!” As of the publication of this text, Nexstar has not introduced its plans for this night.
Whereas Sinclair initially introduced its associates would air a tribute present to Kirk in lieu of “Jimmy Kimmel Stay!,” that didn’t occur. Sinclair associates as an alternative aired episodes of “Movie star Household Feud,” like most ABC associates, within the timeslot as an alternative.
On Wednesday, September 17, ABC introduced that they have been suspending Kimmel’s present “indefinitely” following a joke that Kimmel made on air that many felt was insensitive and inflammatory within the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
On the Monday, September 14 episode of the present, Kimmel mentioned throughout his monologue, “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately attempting to characterize this child who murdered Charlie Kirk as something apart from one in every of them and with all the things they’ll to attain political factors from it.” Many felt that this comment implied that Kirk’s alleged killer was MAGA, which proof doesn’t at present recommend is the case.
IndieWire famous within the aftermath that Disney harmed its personal enterprise pursuits by capitulating to Trump. Kimmel was a critical funding of years and tens (if not a whole lot) of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
The suspension prompted days of dialogue concerning the standing of free speech in America and with critical criticism lodged from even conservative Republican senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul towards the Trump administration for its coercive techniques in pressuring Kimmel off the air. Kimmel’s suspension resulted in protests by free speech advocates in entrance of his Hollywood studio and an ACLU letter decrying his removing signed by 400 celebrities.