“In addition to not being very funny, the observation rested on a false assumption—that the presumed killer, 22-year-old Utah man Tyler Robinson, is a conservative…
Brendan Carr, chair of Federal Communications Commission (FCC), weighed in on the matter; not only did he criticize what Kimmel had to say, he also implicitly threatened the broadcasters. (Kimmel’s show appears on ABC.)…
This was not an idle threat. The FCC licenses broadcast channels, and can fine them or even take them off the air. Moreover, the FCC oversees mergers of companies in the communications space. Nexstar Media, which owns many of the ABC local affiliate stations that air Kimmel, is attempting to acquire Tegna Inc., a rival firm; the FCC needs to okay the deal. There’s a lot at stake, and FCC can make life very difficult for companies that defy it.
And so, on Wednesday night, both Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcast Group—another major telecommunications company—informed ABC that they would not air Kimmel on their affiliate stations. ABC then opted to place the show on indefinite hiatus….
This is outrageous. Not because Kimmel is gone: Private companies have the right to determine their programming as they see fit…
But it shouldn’t be a government decision. By inserting itself into the controversy and appearing to twist the arms of private companies so that they would make editorial decisions that please the Trump administration, the FCC is clearly engaged in a kind of censorship.
As Glenn Greenwald put it, “This shouldn’t be a complicated or difficult dichotomy to understand. Jimmy Kimmel is repulsive, but the state has no role in threatening companies to fire on-air voices it dislikes or who the state believes is spreading “disinformation,” which is exactly what happened here.””
https://reason.com/2025/09/18/the-fcc-should-let-jimmy-kimmel-be