A long-running, enormously popular late-night star, anticipating a negotiation for a new contract, is blindsided by an anonymously sourced story in The New York Post suggesting the star’s network is considering moving on from him when his current contract expires.
The network, confronted with the story, offers a tepid denial, saying the account is “inaccurate,” and that “reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative.”
As ringing endorsements go, this one sounds like a bicycle bell—one attached to one of those bikes with one huge wheel and one tiny one.
As in: a real throwback. As in: where have I heard this story before?
On Feb 11, 1991, the headline in the New York Post read: “THERE GOES JOHNNY: NBC looking to Dump Carson.”
Thirty-five years later, the headline on Page Six of The New York Post is “Jimmy Kimmel’s Late Night show set to end in 2027.”
And, amazingly enough, the Post is being run by the same guy, Rupert Murdoch, who was 60 when the first story ran and is now 95.
I did a little reporting about that infamous Carson story 35 years ago for my book The Late Shift. I found the person who planted the story in the Post. He worked for Helen Kushnick, then the manager of Jay Leno, and he related how he and Helen hatched this plan to use a manufactured story in the Post in their effort to force NBC’s hand in moving Carson out so Jay could take over.
Not one NBC executive had discussed this with Kushnick or her source. It was completely fabricated. And it landed like a grenade in NBC’s offices—and in Carson’s heart. He was devastated by this public diminishment of his reputation. And not mollified by NBC’s response at the time, which was also tepid: the network acknowledged its debt to Carson and said he would be the one to decide when to leave.
What NBC did not say was that it hoped Carson would stay forever. Because it so happened, the network really was pondering a future without him.
So what is really going on with ABC, its corporate owner Disney, and Jimmy Kimmel?
The comedian’s contract expires in May, but he’s hardly at retirement age. He also just experienced the most consequential year of his late-night run; he overcame a heavy-handed attempt by the FCC to force him off the air and a brief suspension ordered by his network; and his stand on behalf of free speech won him acclaim across the country and the highest ratings of his late-night career.
Meanwhile, the suspension played terribly for Disney/ABC, with public calls to boycott the company, actual cancellations of Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions, and even reports of canceled visits to Disney theme parks.
And yet ABC is reportedly ready to end his show when his contract expires next May? A move that would be widely interpreted as complete capitulation to the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, and his boss, Trump, whose animus toward Kimmel—over being made fun of—has reached fanatical levels? A move that would likely trigger even worse backlash from viewers who believe just as strongly as Kimmel in his First Amendment rights?
What kind of corporate insanity is that?
The kind that might be related to Carr’s ham-fisted “We can do this the hard way or the easy way” effort—first against Kimmel and, when that didn’t work out, against ABC’s broadcast licenses. Could the network’s management be deciding it had better cut and run instead of go to war with the feds?
Up until this potential backdown, Disney has fought Trump and Carr and even sued to stop that license threat. Why kneel to the effort to get rid of Kimmel now, the same day he starts a new season with renewed vigor to take on Trump comedically? With the promise of even higher ratings?
As in 1991, the answer may lie in who might be interested in planting this story at this ripe moment.
This time, it’s not likely to be another comic’s manager angling for Kimmel’s job; odds are that ABC, like CBS—which shed its star Stephen Colbert, himself the subject of endless attacks by the President—would close its late-night shop after a Kimmel exit.
That leaves either political motivation (Murdoch’s paper is a frequent megaphone for Trump) or possibly one side or the other maneuvering over a new contract for the host.
The Post item follows recent talks about a new deal for Kimmel that have reportedly been less than convivial. Was the planted story about negotiation leverage? If so, it was a risky move, potentially pushing the two sides toward a breakdown neither really wants. And the timing was especially odd, coming just as Kimmel returned to the air from summer vacation Tuesday night, celebrating his 4,000th show, greeted by cheering fans clearly not ready to see him fade into the sunset.
As for the man himself, he stepped up with spine fully intact and got right to the heart of the matter.
Noting the 4,000th-show milestone, Kimmel opened his monologue, one packed with his usual complement of jokes skewering the many-splendored follies of the Trump regime, by addressing his ongoing battle with governmental infringement on the right to free speech directly, and by name:
“There are those who said we would never last this long. There are even those who used the regulatory might of the FCC to unconstitutionally try to make sure we didn’t last this long. But we did it the hard way, Brendan, and we are still here.”
But here for how long now seems, surprisingly, unsettled.
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