Jimmy Kimmel’s planned return to late-night television was thrown into uncertainty on Monday as two of the largest owners of ABC-affiliated stations said they would continue to preempt his program, leaving swaths of the U.S. without a conventional broadcast of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” even as ABC reinstates the show. ABC said the program would resume on Tuesday after a six-day suspension prompted by remarks Kimmel made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, but affiliate groups Sinclair and Nexstar announced they would not carry the show in their markets for now.
In a statement, ABC said it had “spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.” The network initially suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last week, saying it wanted to avoid inflaming a tense moment after Kimmel’s monologue remarks the prior Monday.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates ABC affiliates in dozens of markets, said it would not air the show when it resumes. “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,” the company said. In a separate press release last week, Sinclair called Kimmel’s remarks “inappropriate and deeply insensitive” and said it would not lift its preemption until formal talks with ABC about “professionalism and accountability,” while also urging Kimmel to apologize to the Kirk family and make a personal donation to the family and to Turning Point USA. Sinclair aired a remembrance special for Kirk in the show’s time slot on Friday.
Nexstar Media Group, which owns or partners with stations in more than 100 U.S. markets, said last week that its ABC affiliates would “preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ for the foreseeable future beginning with tonight’s show,” citing strong objections to Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s killing. “Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse,” Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, said at the time.
The standoff deepens the fallout from Kimmel’s Sept. 15 monologue, in which he criticized political reaction to the shooting. According to ABC’s account of that broadcast described in the network’s reinstatement announcement, Kimmel said “many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk” and that “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” The comments drew complaints from conservative groups and from affiliate owners, and ABC subsequently suspended the show on Sept. 17.
The dispute also drew in Washington regulators and members of Congress. Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr—who had publicly criticized Kimmel’s remarks last week—said on Monday that “government pressure played no role” in the show’s suspension. “Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he is in because of his ratings, not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Carr said at a New York forum.
Democratic lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee pressed Carr to explain his role, citing statements he made on Sept. 17. In a letter sent Thursday, Reps. Robert Garcia and Maxwell Frost wrote that Carr “appeared to threaten FCC action against ABC-affiliated stations” unless Kimmel was removed, quoting him as saying: “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” The letter linked the statement to affiliates’ decisions later that day to preempt the show.
ABC’s decision to bring Kimmel back came amid an unusually broad entertainment-industry response. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union coordinated an open letter that it said was signed by more than 400 artists, including Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and others, calling Kimmel’s suspension “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation” and urging Americans “to defend and preserve our constitutionally protected rights.” The ACLU followed up later in the day saying the tally had surpassed 475 artists and 40,000 additional signatories.
Major entertainment outlets reported similar counts of signatories and described the letter as a show of unity across film, television and theater. The Guardian said the suspension had “sparked a national debate on free speech,” noting that Disney called Kimmel’s comments “ill-timed and thus insensitive” as it announced the show’s return.
Sinclair and Nexstar’s moves ensure that Kimmel’s broadcast reach will be diminished if their positions hold, even as the program returns to production. Sinclair said Monday it will continue to fill the time slot with news programming while talks proceed, and last week both groups cited concerns about Kimmel’s remarks in announcing their preemptions. ABC did not immediately say how many markets would be affected by the affiliates’ decisions, and neither Sinclair nor Nexstar provided a timetable for potential changes.
The affiliates’ actions—and ABC’s initial suspension—came as the Trump administration and its appointees faced criticism from media and civil liberties groups for what they describe as pressure on broadcasters. Carr, who last week urged Disney and affiliates to “take action” and had said “we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” sought on Monday to recast his remarks as part of a broader point about news-distortion complaints, insisting any FCC involvement would be limited to adjudicating formal filings.
ABC’s reinstatement announcement did not specify whether Kimmel would address the controversy in his first show back. The network’s statement emphasized that its initial suspension was intended “to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country” and that the decision to return followed discussions with the host.
Entertainment publications reported that Sinclair’s conditions for restoring the show included a direct apology from Kimmel to the Kirk family and a personal donation to the family and to Turning Point USA, the conservative organization founded by Kirk. Sinclair reiterated those demands in its Sept. 17 press release and said it would not lift its preemption until it was “confident that appropriate steps have been taken to uphold the standards expected of a national broadcast platform.”
Nexstar’s announcement framed its decision in terms of local standards and “the public interest” in the communities it serves. “Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time,” Alford said in last week’s statement. Nexstar said its stations would replace the show with other programming while tensions cool.
The Associated Press reported that Kimmel has hosted the ABC program since 2003 and recently served as host of the Academy Awards. As affiliates weighed their positions on Monday, AP also noted that Sinclair planned to air news programming in the time slot and that a spokesman for Turning Point USA criticized ABC’s decision to restore Kimmel, writing on X that affiliate owners “do not have to make the same choice.”
Reuters said some lawmakers from both parties questioned the propriety of any government role, with Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz likening Carr’s earlier phrasing to a mob shakedown. Carr on Monday rejected the notion that federal pressure contributed to the suspension and said the matter was “about ratings.”
ABC has not disclosed whether streaming availability or the show’s digital channels will change while some affiliates decline to air it. The Guardian reported that, regardless of the broadcast footprint, episodes would continue to be available online after the ABC airing. Meanwhile, affiliate statements suggest any broader return to normal carriage will depend on negotiations between the network and station groups, and on whether Kimmel addresses the demands laid out by Sinclair.
The situation underscores the complex relationships between networks and their independently owned affiliates, which can preempt national programming when owners deem content contrary to local standards or business interests. In this case, affiliate actions preceded ABC’s suspension decision and then persisted after ABC reversed course, leaving the prospect of a patchwork return. Neither Sinclair nor Nexstar detailed the total number of affected viewers. Fox News, citing Sinclair’s public statements, said Sinclair operates 30 ABC affiliates.
It was not immediately clear whether Kimmel planned to respond to the affiliates’ conditions or to address the controversy in his opening monologue. ABC did not say whether the host had spoken directly with Sinclair or Nexstar in advance of Tuesday’s show. Sinclair said “discussions with ABC are ongoing,” and Nexstar has not updated its guidance since announcing a preemption “for the foreseeable future.”
For now, the network’s decision to restore the program has not resolved the distribution dispute that followed Kimmel’s remarks on Sept. 15. The ACLU and prominent entertainers have framed the episode as a test of free-speech protections in the entertainment industry, while affiliate groups have presented it as a matter of local standards and broadcaster responsibility. As ABC returns “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to production, the show’s broadcast footprint will depend on whether station owners and the network can reach an agreement.
