Kimmel is back on ABC to big ratings, but some affiliates still refuse
to air his show
[September 25, 2025]
By DAVID BAUDER
NEW YORK (AP) — Jimmy Kimmel is back on his ABC late-night show, but
it's still a mystery when — or if — viewers in cities such as
Washington, Seattle and St. Louis will be able to see him again on their
televisions.
ABC stations owned by the Nexstar and Sinclair corporations took Kimmel
off the air last week on the same day the network suspended him for
comments that angered supporters of slain conservative activist Charlie
Kirk. Those stations kept him off the air Tuesday, when ABC lifted the
suspension. The unusual dispute attracted the attention of U.S.
senators, who said they wanted to investigate the relationship between
the affiliates and President Donald Trump's administration.
Kimmel returned with no apologies, but in an emotional monologue where
he appeared close to tears, the host said that he was not trying to joke
about the assassination. He also paid tribute to Kirk's widow.
And it got a large audience, with ABC reporting nearly 6.3 million
people tuned in to the broadcast alone, despite the blackouts in many
cities. As is often the case with late-night hosts' monologues, there
was a larger audience online, with more than 15 million people watching
Kimmel's opening remarks on YouTube by Wednesday evening. ABC says more
than 26 million people watched Kimmel's return on social media,
including YouTube.
Typically, he gets about 1.8 million viewers each night on television.
The numbers released by ABC do not include viewership from streaming
services.
A spokesman for Nexstar said Wednesday that Kimmel will continue to be
preempted from its stations while the company evaluates his show.
Together, the Nexstar and Sinclair groups account for about a quarter of
ABC's affiliates, many in smaller cities such as Nashville, Tennessee;
Lubbock, Texas; or Topeka, Kansas.
“We are engaged in productive discussions with executives at the (ABC
parent) Walt Disney Co., with a focus on ensuring the program reflects
and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve,” Nexstar
said.
Dispute highlights relationship between networks and local stations
The dispute focused attention on the business relationships between
television networks and the local stations that carry their programming.
In the past, local stations occasionally balked at airing a network
show, but it was usually an individual market or two worried about
pushing boundaries in language or sexual content, said Ted Harbert, a
former top executive at ABC and CBS.
What's different this time is groups that have gobbled up multiple
stations acting collectively on content for largely political reasons.
“This is how much the country's political divisions have seeped their
way into something that has been, for the last 50 or 75 years, a
relatively orderly business,” Harbert said.
Leadership of ownership groups is generally more conservative than the
media and entertainment figures on the stations they broadcast, said Ken
Basin, author of “The Business of Television.” Both Sinclair, with
conservative political content, and Nexstar have reason to curry favor
with the Trump administration, he said. Nexstar is seeking regulatory
approval for the purchase of a rival, he said.
“I worry that this is not going to be the only dispute of this nature in
the years ahead,” Basin said.
It's possible that Disney could play hardball if negotiations on
Kimmel's return drag on, such as threatening to withhold other ABC
programming — even the “nuclear option” of football games. Its unclear
how the affiliate agreements are worded.
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"Jimmy Kimmel Live!" audience members are directed to the back
entrance of the show's studio for a taping on Tuesday, Sept. 23,
2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
 But Matt Dolgin, senior equity
analyst at Morningstar Research Service, said he doubts the dispute
reaches that point. The station groups have a far less diversified
business portfolio than Disney, and the expiration of affiliate
agreements next year looms as a deadline, he said. They have few
good options if they lose ABC programming.
“From a business perspective, the best course on this issue (for
Disney) is to stay above the fray,” Dolgin said. “The dollars
associated with this show are very low.”
As they climb, the stunning number of YouTube views of Kimmel's
monologue serve to make television broadcasting less important,
hurting the negotiating position of the stations.
For the station groups, the biggest goal should be to negotiate
their way out of this — while finding a way to save face, he said.
Sinclair initially took a strong stance, saying Kimmel would not
return to its stations without apologizing to Kirk's widow and
donating money to Kirk's political organization. That's not likely
to happen.
Kimmel was at risk of losing show entirely
Last week, Kimmel seemed to be in real danger of losing his show
entirely until advocates for free speech protested, including many
who canceled subscriptions for Disney services.
“The backlash was stronger than they expected, stronger than I
expected,” Basin said. “There was a sense of despair within the
industry that this was a ‘canary in a coal mine’ moment.”
Four Democratic senators said late Tuesday that they wanted to look
into what happened with the station groups.
“If Nexstar or Sinclair traded the censorship of a critic of the
administration for official acts by the Trump administration, your
companies are not only complicit in an alarming trampling of free
speech but also risk running afoul of anti-corruption law,” Sens.
Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Ron Wyden and Chris Van Hollen wrote to
the companies.
On Wednesday, another group of senators led by California Democrat
Adam Schiff said they wanted to question FCC Chairman Brendan Carr
about “implicit threats” made to Disney over Kimmel.
In his monologue Tuesday, Kimmel tried to thread the needle between
both sides in a raw political moment, and seemed to realize its
difficulty.
“I don’t think what I’m going to say is going to make much of a
difference,” he said. “If you like me, you like me. If you don’t,
you don’t. I have no illusions about changing anyone’s mind.”
Within hours, many proved his point. Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson
for Turning Point USA, the organization that Kirk founded that is
now headed by his widow, posted on X that Kimmel’s monologue was
“not good enough.”
In another corner of social media, comic Ben Stiller posted that it
was a “brilliant monologue.”
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