ED MORRISSEY: ABC to Bring Back Kimmel; Mamdani Boycotts ABC Debate.
Surprised? Don’t be. Disney ended up caving to the Left. The real question is whether Sinclair and Nexstar follow suit:
Jimmy Kimmel is getting back on the air.
The ABC late-night host is returning to broadcast on Tuesday following a brief-but-monumental suspension that sparked a national debate over the Trump Administration’s pressure tactics and the modern limits and consequences of free speech.
As John just noted in an update, this should put Kimmel on the air tomorrow night, but the real question will be on how many channels. ABC and Disney have a number of owned-and-operated stations, but a significant number of ABC stations are affiliates. Two companies own most of those, and so far they’re not talking about whether they plan to restore that time slot:
Despite Kimmel’s return, it is not immediately clear if he will be available across the entire country. Sinclair, for its part, had said that it would not go back to running Kimmel’s show on its stations until the late night host apologized for his comments, met with Sinclair representatives, and made a donation to Turning Point, the organization that Kirk founded. Sinclair, it should be noted, owns the ABC station in the Washington D.C. metro area, among other markets.
Nexstar, similarly, could also choose to continue to preempt the show, though of course it would still be accessible online across the country after it runs on ABC.
Will Sinclair cave twice to the hecklers’ veto?
So to be clear, leftists' threats — which included actual gun violence — censored ABC stations.
That's much worse than what Carr did, and it will garner ZERO coverage from the same insincere free speech warriors on the left that spent the last week screaming. https://t.co/jkijxxICXf
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) September 22, 2025
UPDATE:
— George MF Washington (@GMFWashington) September 22, 2025