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Jimmy Kimmel returned to the air on Tuesday night following a brief suspension due to pressure from FCC chairman Brendan Carr over comments Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk’s murder.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! was not seen in all of its usual markets, however, as local affiliates owned by the companies Sinclair and Nexstar preempted Kimmel’s show, keeping him off the air.
According to reports, ABC could counter Sinclair and Nexstar preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! by pull SEC football from their regions.
The decision to preempt Kimmel’s show seems more like political posturing, though, as “groups like Sinclair can only preempt network programming a limited number of times before breaching its affiliate agreement with a network like ABC.”
Thus, they can only keep Kimmel off the air for a certain length of time before it begins to hurt their wallets.
ABC could pull live sports such as SEC football off the air in Sinclair markets to counter their Jimmy Kimmel decision
“And as we enter the heart of football season, when ABC will be airing a full slate of SEC football on Saturdays along with the NFL’s Monday Night Football most weeks, we could be in for a high-stakes game of chicken between Disney and companies like Sinclair and Nexstar should they continue to preempt Kimmel.” [via Awful Announcing]
This is legitimately fascinating. ABC could pull the SEC off the air in Sinclair and Nexstar markets in response to those companies preempting Jimmy Kimmel. https://t.co/sXNOw5x5zi
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) September 23, 2025
Kimmel returned to the air on Tuesday night and directly called out President Trump.
“He tried his best to cancel me. Instead he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now … Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke,” Kimmel said.
“This show is not important, what is important is we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
Trump didn’t take long to respond to Kimmel’s return to the airwaves, indicating that he is going to sue ABC over the decision.
