Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was recently “preempted” indefinitely by ABC, owned by Disney. The word is telling — probably chosen instead of “terminated” because of the legal fight likely to follow.
Why? Kimmel’s remarks about the assassination of Charlie Kirk — suggesting Republicans were exploiting his death for political gain — infuriated Trump and his allies. The real pressure, though, came from Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns about 40% of local TV stations that carry national network programming.
Sinclair is deeply conservative and has grown by gobbling up local affiliates. Now it seeks to merge with Tegna, another giant owner of local stations. If successful, they could control as much as 80% of network affiliates — far above the FCC’s 38% cap. That gives the Trump administration extraordinary leverage over both companies. Was Sinclair acting out of outrage at Kimmel’s comments, or out of deference to political power? Probably the latter.
Sinclair also wants to move beyond distribution and into content, aiming to create a network even further to the right than Fox.