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*****BREAKING**** Jimmy Kimmel To Return To ABC On Tuesday Night
Jimmy Kimmel is coming back.
ABC said on Monday that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return to its airwaves on Tuesday, ending an impasse that began last week.
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent company, said in a statement.
“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the statement said. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
MORE
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/business/media/jimmy-kimmel-returns-abc.html
55 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Obviously, just kidding. FWIW, in addition to sending to every Iger email I could find online, I submitted to oped@seattletimes.com
An open letter to Mr. Iger and the executives at Disney and ABC Entertainment responsible for suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live:
I urge you to take an honest look at your reasons for suspending Mr. Kimmel's show. If you do, I believe you will find they are indefensible rationalizations.
Mr. Kimmel said nothing about the political ideology of Mr. Kirk's killer. He pointed out that people who self-identify as MAGA, which countless analysts agree is a reactionary right-wing ideology, have been fervently characterizing Mr. Kirk's shooter as someone from the left (that is, not one of them).
That is simply a fact. You know it. I don't have to offer examples from the thousands of quotes. The purpose -- the "political points" they score -- is also obvious: To demonize the left.
Mr. Kimmel rightfully made no assertions about the political ideology of the shooter because that ideology is not known. As Nathan Taylor Pemberton pointed out in his Sept 14, New York Times Guest Essay, Charlie Kirk's Killing and Our Poisonous Internet, "The only thing that can be said conclusively about Mr. Robinson, at this moment, is that he was a chronically online, white American male." And, as Elle Reeve, a highly regarded investigative journalist with expertise on social media's role in extremism warns us, "Be careful trying to decipher the true political beliefs of people wrapped in so many layers of irony they're not sure of their own true beliefs."
Mr. Kimmel has nothing to apologize for.
If anything crosses a "red line" for a media entity that takes its responsibility to serve the public interest seriously, it is the extreme labels and calls to "crush," or otherwise do violence to Americans who peacefully make their opposition to Christian nationalism and MAGA ideology known. (Notably, according to a February 2025 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, about two-thirds of Americans oppose Christian nationalism.)
On one side you have the reactionary right and Christian nationalists who support an executive branch determined to seize authoritarian power and demonize anyone who does not agree with them as "radicals." On the other side, you have people who treasure essential American values like self-governance, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rule of law, and equal treatment under that law.
You cannot make both sides happy.
You can do the right thing, bring back Mr. Kimmel's show, and have the “MAGA gang” angry at you. Or you can do the wrong thing, keep his show off the air while you try to force an apology that is not called for, and have people who believe in essential American values angry at you.
If you choose the right course, and NextStar or other affiliates refuse to air it, you can bet that they will be hearing from Mr. Kimmel's fans.
And if the FCC tries to make good on its abusive threats to pull the licenses of affiliates who do air the show, I'm sure their legal departments have motions to enjoin drafted and ready to file in anticipation of such an action. Given the vindictive actions of Trump's executive branch against media companies to date, if they aren't prepared, they are derelict to the point of gross negligence.
Standing against government action to suppress free speech is the obligation of every patriotic American. And I believe it is also the obligation of every corporate entity that wishes to preserve their brand's reputation as an entity that upholds American values.
Yours in hope that you do the right thing and win back my subscription,
Patty
Full name, address, phone...
I urge you to take an honest look at your reasons for suspending Mr. Kimmel's show. If you do, I believe you will find they are indefensible rationalizations.
Mr. Kimmel said nothing about the political ideology of Mr. Kirk's killer. He pointed out that people who self-identify as MAGA, which countless analysts agree is a reactionary right-wing ideology, have been fervently characterizing Mr. Kirk's shooter as someone from the left (that is, not one of them).
That is simply a fact. You know it. I don't have to offer examples from the thousands of quotes. The purpose -- the "political points" they score -- is also obvious: To demonize the left.
Mr. Kimmel rightfully made no assertions about the political ideology of the shooter because that ideology is not known. As Nathan Taylor Pemberton pointed out in his Sept 14, New York Times Guest Essay, Charlie Kirk's Killing and Our Poisonous Internet, "The only thing that can be said conclusively about Mr. Robinson, at this moment, is that he was a chronically online, white American male." And, as Elle Reeve, a highly regarded investigative journalist with expertise on social media's role in extremism warns us, "Be careful trying to decipher the true political beliefs of people wrapped in so many layers of irony they're not sure of their own true beliefs."
Mr. Kimmel has nothing to apologize for.
If anything crosses a "red line" for a media entity that takes its responsibility to serve the public interest seriously, it is the extreme labels and calls to "crush," or otherwise do violence to Americans who peacefully make their opposition to Christian nationalism and MAGA ideology known. (Notably, according to a February 2025 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, about two-thirds of Americans oppose Christian nationalism.)
On one side you have the reactionary right and Christian nationalists who support an executive branch determined to seize authoritarian power and demonize anyone who does not agree with them as "radicals." On the other side, you have people who treasure essential American values like self-governance, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rule of law, and equal treatment under that law.
You cannot make both sides happy.
You can do the right thing, bring back Mr. Kimmel's show, and have the “MAGA gang” angry at you. Or you can do the wrong thing, keep his show off the air while you try to force an apology that is not called for, and have people who believe in essential American values angry at you.
If you choose the right course, and NextStar or other affiliates refuse to air it, you can bet that they will be hearing from Mr. Kimmel's fans.
And if the FCC tries to make good on its abusive threats to pull the licenses of affiliates who do air the show, I'm sure their legal departments have motions to enjoin drafted and ready to file in anticipation of such an action. Given the vindictive actions of Trump's executive branch against media companies to date, if they aren't prepared, they are derelict to the point of gross negligence.
Standing against government action to suppress free speech is the obligation of every patriotic American. And I believe it is also the obligation of every corporate entity that wishes to preserve their brand's reputation as an entity that upholds American values.
Yours in hope that you do the right thing and win back my subscription,
Patty
Full name, address, phone...
And see that, MAGA conservatives? We can boycott without destroying property, threatening to murder people or acting weird and creepy around things. 
