When Jimmy Kimmel returns to his show tonight, the country will not be fully restored to sanity, fairness, and the values it has lived by for 250 years.
But it will have, finally, someone who doesn’t capitulate at the first sign of a bully’s ugly pressure—even when the bully is the President of the United States.
And that someone will be center stage at what is shaping up as one of the true television events of the year. Which is likely not what the President and his loyal agent at the FCC intended when they tried to use intimidation to force Kimmel off the air.
It was a tenuous week for the business of broadcasting—and the Constitution—after ABC and The Walt Disney Company reacted with uncomfortable speed to threats by two large media organizations with wide holdings in ABC affiliates, pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its schedule for an indefinite period.
That quickly led to Trump announcing that Kimmel was canceled—untrue—and calling for NBC’s two late-night hosts to be summarily shut down, under veiled threat that their network could also be subject to abusive governmental interference.
What this amounted to was another test. The Trump Administration had pressured law firms, universities, and another network—CBS, with another late-night host—using its leverage to probe for weak points, to see how willing these organizations were to stand up for their rights.
They were all startlingly unwilling. The Administration might have expected the same from Disney/ABC, because that company had already wilted quickly in a lawsuit filed over a comment made about Trump’s sexual abuse case by anchor George Stephanopoulos. The quick settlement there was intended to make a problem go away—a paltry (to a mega-corporation) $15 million to placate the bully.
But concessions never placate bullies. And the new attack on Disney/ABC was all about silencing a particularly pointed critic of the current President, one who has never enjoyed the aspect of the office that includes being made fun of.
All previous presidents have chafed at least a bit under that mocking onslaught—from Carson to Letterman and Leno and SNL. But they were raised with the awareness that comics had First Amendment protection to play the jester. Trump, raised on something else, clearly prefers the older system, where if the king stopped being amused, he called for the Royal Executioner—or in this case, the Royal License-Revoker.
We’ll likely learn later about the internal discussions at Disney that resulted in the decision to defy the FCC and Trump and return Kimmel to the air. The period in between has been decidedly unpleasant for Disney, with customers announcing boycotts of their streaming channels, parks, and merchandise; and players across the entertainment and media world decrying what looked like another surrender.
If the Disney executives, led by Bob Iger, didn’t know it already—and they likely did—that initial reaction told them there was really no choice: fight for what was right, or flee to a never-land called ignominy.
Iger and Disney’s initial run for cover—a cooling-down period—may never have involved any serious thought of canceling Kimmel outright. It always seemed more logical that the move was intended to lower the heat while some path for his return was being worked out.
That path will likely include some kind of well-considered conciliatory statement (not a formal apology) from the comic, maybe an emotional one, because that’s the kind of person Jimmy Kimmel is. After that, people can expect regular programming to resume—in the form of jokes about a bagman’s visit to a future Administration official, or Trump failing to wrestle the word “acetaminophen” into any recognizable pronunciation.
Because that’s what comedians do.
And everybody will be either watching, or checking in later to hear what Kimmel said. At least in the short term, the “failing Jimmy Kimmel” is going to have the most-watched and talked-about show on television.
Both he and Disney are likely to walk away from this standoff with the U.S. government with reputations intact, maybe even enhanced.
Kimmel, because in the face of potential career-ending threats (and who knows how many physical threats fired at him by overwrought MAGA warriors), he didn’t wilt, didn’t flinch, stood his ground—on a venerable 18th-century foundation. And Disney, because in the end it made the right call.
Right, as in correct, but also, as in “Bill of…”
Sinclair, one of the two station groups who publicly pulled the plug on Kimmel’s show last week, vowed to block the airing of the “back from suspension” episode Tuesday night. That means local viewers of ABC in places like Washington D.C., Seattle, and Columbus won’t be able to see the news-making show—at least initially. Of course, it will be available online very quickly. Clips of Jimmy’s comments will be everywhere.
Whether the blockade continues may depend on how well the comments and the show go over, and how ardently Sinclair executives want to defend their stance—to the public, and to a network with whom they have a carriage-agreement contract.
That is not to say there are any winners here. The Administration, never conceding a loss, will still target Kimmel over his every move and utterance. Disney will probably have to endure boycott threats to its programs, parks, and products, from the other side.
But at least for a while, the First Amendment lives to fight another day.
On second thought, there is a winner: the USA.
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good piece, bill, about a truly awful situation. wind the clock back–we never ever saw this coming…
As usual, Bill Carter nailed it and wrote a great piece!