Tina Nguyen is a Senior Reporter for The Verge and author of Regulator, covering the second Trump administration, political influencers, tech lobbying and Big Tech vs. Big Government.
Disney and ABC have pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! off air “indefinitely” after FCC chairman Brendan Carr threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of any station that aired his show over comments Kimmel made about the man charged with killing Charlie Kirk.
The decision, according to Variety, was made after television giant Nexstar announced that its local ABC affiliates would pre-empt airings of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, just hours after Carr issued that threat. Nexstar is one of the biggest owners of television stations across the country. We’ve reached out to the FCC for comment on what specifically is objectionable from Kimmel’s show and which FCC regulations he may have violated.
Nexstar is also waiting on Carr to approve a pending $6.2 billion merger with rival broadcaster Tegna, according to comments made by CEO Perry Sook during a recent investment call.
Earlier today, Carr suggested to MAGA influencer Benny Johnson earlier today that he would consider pulling the broadcast licenses of television stations that air ABC, after late night host Jimmy Kimmel claimed on his show that the “MAGA gang” was “trying to desperately categorize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them”.
In the interview, which Johnson posted on X, Carr also offered ABC and its parent company Disney an easier way out: punish Kimmel themselves.
“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.”
Carr, a Trump appointee, has spent his tenure at the FCC attacking legacy media outlets for alleged bias against conservatives, regularly threatening to pull broadcast licenses over coverage he dislikes. He’s exploited the FCC’s merger approval process to gain leverage over entertainment companies, particularly Paramount and Skydance, who agreed to let a “bias” watchdog scrutinize the programming they aired. Carr also previously threatened to investigate Disney for its diversity policies.
During the manhunt for Kirk’s killer last week, heated speculation arose over possible ideological motives. While Republicans immediately asserted the shooter was on the political left, online speculation over the weekend suggested Robinson might be tied to the far-right groyper movement that had long harassed Kirk — a trend that Kimmel brought up briefly in his monologue on Tuesday night.
“We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to desperately categorize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” said Kimmel, who then moved on to discuss President Donald Trump’s Friday press conference.
Johnson characterized the comment in an X post as Kimmel “claiming Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA Conservative.” Carr told him that was enough for the FCC to work with. “There are calls for Kimmel to be fired,” Carr added later. “I think you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this.”
The previous day, Carr had opposed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent call to distinguish “free speech” from “hate speech” and prosecute the latter, part of a larger Republican attempt to classify criticism or mockery of Kirk as unlawful. “I think you can draw a pretty clear line, and the Supreme Court has done this for decades, that our First Amendment, our free speech tradition, protects almost all speech,” he said at a summit hosted by Politico.
So speech about Kirk flies on the internet, apparently. But broadcast TV is subject to greater government oversight thanks to the FCC’s licensing of spectrum. Kimmel’s comment, Carr claimed, fell under the offense of “news distortion”, which he said was enough to pull the license of stations that broadcast it.
“We have a rule on the books that interprets a public interest standard that says news distortion is something that is prohibited. Likewise, we have a rule that addresses broadcast hoaxes, and so again, over the years, the FCC has stepped back from enforcing it, and I don’t think it’s been to the benefit of anybody. Just look at the credibility of these legacy media,” Carr said. (Pulling station licenses for airing a late-night show would be virtually unprecedented — it’s a penalty that’s been used rarely in egregious circumstances.)
Disney itself doesn’t hold a broadcast license, so Carr issued his clearest threats to local ABC affiliates. “Disney needs to see some change here, but the individual licensed stations that are taking [Disney’s] content, it’s time for them to step up and say this, you know, garbage — to the extent that that’s what comes down the pipe in the future — isn’t something that we think serves the needs of our local communities,” he said.
Nexstar needs the FCC to loosen regulatory restrictions in order to proceed with its proposed merger with Tegna, which would make it the largest owner of broadcast stations in the country. Under current FCC rules, a single company cannot directly own television stations that reach more than 39 percent of American viewers. The merger would bring it to 80 percent.
In an investor conference call last month, Newscast Studio reported that Sook expressed his belief that Carr and the Trump administration would repeal those rules for them. “We feel very, very positive about moving forward with the regulatory approval process,” Sook said. “We’re meeting this deregulatory moment where it is, and we will work together with regulators as they consider modifying and repealing outdated rules and regulations.”
Earlier, Carr noted all the other media outlets he’d threatened with legal recourse were now doing amazing jobs at complying with being fairer to conservatives.
“I mean, look, NPR has been defunded. PBS has been defunded. [Stephen] Colbert is retiring. Joy Reid is out at MSNBC,” Carr crowed. “Terry Moran is gone from ABC and is now admitting that they are biased. CBS has now made some commitments to us that they’re going to return to more fact based journalism, and so I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel, who are frankly talentless and are looking for ways to get attention.”
