Sinclair-owned ABC stations will bring 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' back to air Friday

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNBC

Published Fri, Sep 26 2025 1:56 PM EDT Updated 11 Min Ago


Sinclair is returning “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to its ABC affiliate broadcast stations beginning Friday, the company said in a statement.

The announcement comes three days after Disney’s ABC broadcast network returned the late night program to its air after a nearly week-long suspension. Disney had temporarily suspended the late night show following comments Kimmel made about the alleged murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.

“Over the last week, we have received thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives,” Sinclair said in the Friday statement. “We have also witnessed troubling acts of violence, including the despicable incident of a shooting at an ABC affiliate station in Sacramento. These events underscore why responsible broadcasting matters and why respectful dialogue between differing voices remains so important.”

Broadcast station owner Sinclair, along with fellow broadcast station owner Nexstar Media Group
, said earlier this week they would continue to preempt the show, meaning it would be unavailable on local stations for roughly 20% of the country, while they evaluated the situation and continued discussions with Disney.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/26/sinclair-abc-jimmy-kimmel.html

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“Over the last week, we have received thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives,”

TRANSLATION - "We got major blowback from advertisers who were (probably) threatening to pull their ads."

[hlthe2b]

1. What's the status of Nexstar stations?

[Traildogbob]

2. He does not do live Friday shows

[Wiz Imp]

14. He doesn't do any Live shows. They're all taped in the afternoon.

It does appear they will be repeating Tuesday's show tonight.

[Traildogbob]

16. Of course not live

But dame day recording. It will be interesting to see ratings of the Replay from Tuesday. How many in those red brain washing areas want to see it. And accidentally made to see some true news.

[BonnieJW]

29. Nicole reported that Nexstar is also bringing him back

[Give Peace A Chance]

3. It didn't matter

Everyone who wanted to watch JKL was able to access it via the internet.
Joke's on them.

[PatSeg]

4. Ha, ha, ha - I knew that was coming

[Lovie777]

5. I agree with translation..............

also, $$$$$$$$$$$$$ is invloved.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Sinclair FOLDS and ends its preemption of Jimmy Kimmel Live! The show will return tonight on Sinclair's ABC affiliates.

Link to tweet

[Queso Delicioso]

7. LOL, that's gonna PO the chuds.

[Buddyzbuddy]

8. Piper must be paid.

At the end of this nightmare, stations must be ripped from the arms of these companies much like migrant children have been ripped from their parents arms.

How in the hell did so few companies get so much consolidated broadcast power? NVRM, it's rhetorical.

NO MORE! BREAK THEM UP!
No more TV stations and radio stations owned by the same company in the same market. News MUST be independently reported. We need broadcasts that are responsible to the people.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. "How in the hell did so few companies get so much consolidated broadcast power?"

Not rhetorical. The deregulation of the industry in the mid-'90s meant they could go hogwild buying "bundles" of stations.

I know here in Philly, there was a wild set of buys that included Infinity Broadcasting (with NBC affiliates) being bought by Westinghouse (which had owned CBS at the time), and that resulted with our having 2 CBS affiliates. This eventually resulted in those major stations KYW (previously NBC channel 3) and WCAU (previously CBS channel 10), switching affiliations. They rebranded to "NBC10" and "CBS3". THAT was hard to get used to.

[Buddyzbuddy]

30. The "rhetorical" part of the question and answer is

as always, palms were greased.
But, thank you , as always, for providing enlightening information.

[BumRushDaShow]

32. Palms are always greased

and particularly for the majority 104th GOP Congress who passed this -

S.652 - Telecommunications Act of 1996

[Buddyzbuddy]

34. Thank you, my point exactly.

[Wiz Imp]

20. They created something called the UHF Discount

There is a rule that no single company can own stations reaching more than 39% of TV households in the US. But for UHF stations they only count half of the total households.

Sinclair owns many stations in very small markets, so while they own a ton of stations, their total coverage is only around 39%. They only own a station in only 1 of the 10 largest media markets and only 6 of the top 25.

On the other hand, Nexstar also owns a bunch of stations, but they are in much bigger markets in general. Nexstar has stations in 8 of the top 10 markets in the US. Nexstar stations cover about 80% of all households, but because of the discount, they are only "charged" with half of that coverage allowing them to stay around the 39% limit. However, they want to buy Tegna who owns another 60 some stations. If that were to go through, the Nexstar would be over the 39% limit even with the discounts.

I don't know how the FCC ever came up with a 39% limit, it seems completely arbitrary. But what is clear is there should be no discounts for UHF stations anymore. When the discount was implemented, UHF stations generally had weaker signals, but that changed when TV transitioned from analog to digital. Now almost all stations broadcast over UHF.

The limit on ownership should probably be about 25% of households, but if they ever change it, you can bet it will stay higher than that.

[Buddyzbuddy]

31. Thank you for that information.

[LiberalArkie]

9. I guess 90 minute local medicare advantage programs do

not pay as well as a network program.

[Prairie Gates]

10. Local advertisers probably read them the riot act

How are you going to solicit ads for your Seattle local station while being associated with outright fascist nonsense?

[ananda]

12. Yep, it's about money.

It always is.

[OverBurn]

13. Money

[AverageOldGuy]

15. The Sinclair statement needs editing.

What the Sinclair statement says:

“Over the last week, we have received thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives,”

What it really says:

“Over the last week, we have realized that we fucked up big time and after receiving so many complaints and subscription cancellations our servers overloaded, we give up. WE LOVE JIMMY KIMMEL AND ARE EXCITED TO HAVE HIM WITH US. IN FACT, WE ARE GOING TO GIVE HIM A REALLY BIG RAISE!!!!"

[Gimpyknee]

25. Sadly, the Sinclair Broadcast Group is not a subscription service provider.

[Hoosier_Progressiv]

17. Quote: These events underscore why responsible broadcasting matters ....

Yes, it does matter. When will we see this responsible broadcasting? Responsible does not mean censorship.

[moniss]

18. Advertisers probably also leaned heavily on Disney to

"explain" to Sinclair and Nexstar that Disney has the ability to not give them other programming that they are ideologically "OK" with and therefore that ad revenue could disappear as well. It is one thing to be the guy in control of holding the megaphone while it is a very different matter about who owns the output that goes through the megaphone.

[Marie Marie]

19. Heh heh heh. Tough guys who want to rule with conservative propaganda just caved.

[Frasier Balzov]

21. Good news that they detected local feedback.

To me, that translates to Democrats getting out the vote.

It would be nice if a majority of the People valued their country enough to pay attention and show up.

[FakeNoose]

22. Phone calls and complaints to the right people DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

:

[Sneederbunk]

23. That "thoughtful feedback" was painful.

[JPK]

24. Sinclair needs ABC....

...More than ABC needs Sinclair. ABC could disenfranchise Sinclair's stations. Move their affiliation to another station in the market. ABC loses nothing, Sinclair loses a prime national affiliate. How's The CW doing for ya'?

[mwooldri]

26. WJLA.

Sinclairs flagship station (well one of two). Washington DC area. ABC affiliate. I'm sure the station got plenty of complaints.

Probably why Sinclair and Nexstar like to affiliate more with Fox if it can.

[Martin68]

27. They all folded! Looking pretty weak, guys.

[Paladin]

28. Assholes. (nt)

[mucifer]

33. Well Jimmy got a lot of new viewers and trump looks like a fool