Jimmy Kimmel is toast (for now); is that all good?
Sep 19, 2025
∙ Paid
Never liked him. Can only recall watching his show maybe a dozen times many years ago. Before he went total Whack Woke-Job.
And it’s pretty funny now, because Disney, which owns ABC, which produces the Kimmel show, is getting hit from the Right AND the Left. They both hate Disney. Lefties who adore Kimmel are screaming on social media for a boycott of Disney.
But behind this farce, there is big money. As usual. Deals in the works could go sour in the wake of the Kimmel dust-up.
It’s important to take a look at those deals, because ultimately a little thing called the 1st Amendment is on the line.
Wade through this excerpt from a sharp NY Post piece: “Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk weren’t just noxiously offensive and seemingly misleading—their timing was also incredibly bad: They threaten to derail Nexstar’s $6.2 billion takeover of rival broadcaster Tegna, telecom insiders tell On The Money.”
“The already controversial deal—which would combine two of the nation’s largest owners of local TV stations—poses significant antitrust questions and needs a close review by the Federal Communications Commission and its conservative firebrand chairman, Brendan Carr.”
“Kimmel’s comments made that approval even dicier. That’s why Nexstar publicly announced Thursday that its stations would no longer carry the [Kimmel] show, telecom insiders tell On The Money. Ditto for ABC parent Disney, which produces and distributes ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ to broadcasters like Nexstar—and is likewise seeking FCC approval for a massive NFL deal for ESPN.”
“Bob Iger, the CEO of its parent, Disney, was also quick to suspend the [Kimmel] show indefinitely.”
“…The backdrop to all this is Carr, a longtime telecom lawyer who is the new sheriff of the broadcast industry. Carr has been warning networks large and small that he’s taking one of the most expansionary views of the agency’s regulatory edict to make sure programming is in the ‘public interest,’ First Amendment concerns be damned.”
“His [Carr’s] impact has been nothing short of dramatic: Paramount settled a suit with President Trump over CBS’s controversial interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign, fearing that the FCC wouldn’t approve its $8 billion sale to independent studio Skydance.”
“…In the past, the FCC has given wide latitude for broadcasters to air anything except obscenity; that’s why people like Steven Colbert, Kimmel, and even alleged straight news broadcasts like ‘60 Minutes’ could get away with left-wing commentary despite wide swaths of the country hating those views.”
“…Carr would argue the Constitution’s speech clause isn’t absolute. It only means the government can’t jail Kimmel or Colbert for their opinions.”
Personally, I like watching Disney squirm. And I like a nasty political idiot like Kimmel getting axed. But I don’t write to be nothing more than personal.
The Trump administration is expanding its reach into the 1st Amendment. It’s shrinking its view of free speech. It says it’s not, but it’s lying.
The American Way has been: competition. Greg Gutfeld, on late-night Fox cable, has been posting higher ratings than his opposing network chumps.
That’s supposed to be enough.
And if large numbers of viewers deserted Kimmel after his remarks about Charlie Kirk, that would have been enough, too.
Hell, somebody sharp and funny and fearless in exposing how political power really works, could probably launch a late-night show on X or one of the other social media platforms, and outdraw Jimmy Fallon and the news and weather right now.
Sink the assbags through competition.
Don’t ask the government to do it for you.
Trump is making his opposition media play based on having this wolf Carr out there biting ankles with a distorted 1st Amendment. And using pending big business deals as leverage.
That’s bullshit. And that’s not justified on the grounds that the Left has created its own shrinkage of free speech.
ID the Lefties who did that shrinkage and prosecute them. For violating the Law of the Land, the Constitution.
That’s the American Way, too.
Now, I will get personal. A little bit: