Jimmy Kimmel used part of his return monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday night to acknowledge that his show was not airing everywhere in the country.
“We are still on the air in most of the country, except, ironically, for Washington, D.C.,” Kimmel explained. He added that affiliates in Nashville, New Orleans, Portland, Oregon, and Salt Lake City had also declined to broadcast the episode. “None of my wife’s family is able to watch. Sorry, you’ll have to go to YouTube.”
The patchwork of preemptions followed Kimmel’s five-day suspension by ABC, which came after FCC chairman Brendan Carr suggested in a podcast interview that affiliates stop carrying the show, warning of FCC “remedies.” ABC reinstated Kimmel this week, but two of the network’s largest station groups—Sinclair and Nexstar—opted not to air his return.
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) September 24, 2025
Kimmel noted the situation again later, saying the program was “suddenly not being broadcast in 20 percent of the country, which is not a situation we relish.”
The host’s comments underscored the uneven fallout from the lifting of Kimmel’s suspension. While Disney and ABC have been celebrated by some for bringing him back on the air nationally, others—including Donald Trump, in a Tuesday night social media post—have expressed outrage.
Affiliate carriage agreements typically require stations to carry network programming during designated slots, but affiliates retain preemption rights for breaking news and live sports. Whether preemptions based on content disputes could invite contractual challenges remains unclear.
