Over the past two decades Jimmy Kimmel has interviewed thousands of people – including his ultimate boss – on his late-night talkshow.
“I’ve probably, with the possible exception of Roseanne, caused you more headaches than anyone in the last 15 years,” Kimmel grinned at his guest one night in late 2019. “Absolutely,” replied Disney CEO Bob Iger.
When ABC, broadcaster of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, decided to suspend the program “indefinitely” this week, it dispatched an anonymous spokesperson to announce the news. Iger, veteran leader of Disney, ABC’s parent company, was nowhere to be seen – but was widely reported to have been intimately involved in the decision.
Iger is one of a small handful of powerful executives pulling the strings behind the most prominent media organizations in the US. David Ellison, the new CEO of Paramount Skydance, and son of the billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, is in charge of CBS, and reportedly pursuing a deal to buy the owner of CNN. Brian Roberts, the Comcast chair, is the most senior executive overseeing NBC and its cable news network, MSNBC.
Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, attends the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on 12 July 2018 in Sun Valley, Idaho. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
In recent months, major broadcasters have faced criticism for their responses to threats and pressure from the Trump administration. CBS paid a $16m defamation settlement to Donald Trump and scheduled the cancellation of the The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. ABC paid a $15m settlement to the US president and suspended Kimmel.
And Trump is publicly pushing NBC to cancel its two late night stars, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, too.
The owners of the largest US TV networks, and the ultimate employers of their stars, are even bigger companies who conduct business transactions that most viewers may not pay a lot of attention to – mergers, acquisitions, licensing deals – but are firmly in the sights of the White House.
On Wednesday, FCC chair Brendan Carr – dubbed Trump’s “censor-in-chief” – dangled the power of the federal government over ABC, and Disney, saying that the regulator has “remedies we can look at” to address comments Kimmel made about conservatives in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing.
“These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” Carr said of the affiliates that carry ABC across the US. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Soon after, ABC announced it would indefinitely suspend Kimmel’s show. “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” wrote Trump.
But Carr is not done. “I don’t think this is the last shoe to drop,” he said of Kimmel’s suspension, in an interview on the conservative Fox News on Thursday.
To Robert Thompson, a media scholar at Syracuse University who specializes in TV history, battles between government regulators and the companies that broadcast America’s favorite shows have long been a part of broadcast history. But the way TV networks are now part of far larger businesses, and complex webs of interest and influence, have changed the stakes of the fight.
“Entertainment and news are controlled by these large companies that are very dependent on new acquisitions and mergers that require approval by federal government agencies,” Thompson said. “That’s why there’s a vulnerability for this kind of thing to happen.”
The Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed under Bill Clinton, loosened restrictions on how many TV and radio stations a company could own nationally.
Now, the dominant US TV networks – and their news and entertainment arms – are controlled by a small, but powerful, collection of entertainment giants. CBS is owned by Paramount Skydance, which includes Paramount Pictures, cable channels like MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, and other TV channels abroad, including Channel 5 in the UK. ABC is owned by Disney, which also owns Marvel Studios, Hulu and ESPN. NBC is owned by Comcast, which is also a cable TV company and an internet service producer, while also being the company behind the European broadcaster Sky and DreamWorks movies like Shrek.
The timing of recent mergers have alarmed first amendment advocates, who are starting to see a pattern of companies bowing to the Trump administration in order to get approval for their deals.
CBS owner Paramount was criticized for settling with Trump and cancelling Colbert’s show weeks before the FCC greenlit an $8bn merger with Skydance, a Hollywood studio.
The merger installed David Ellison, founder of Skydance, at the top of Paramount Skydance, and CBS.CBS News has since appointed a Trump ally as its ombudsman and Bari Weiss, founder of the Free Press, an “anti-woke” startup, is said to be in line for a role shaping its coverage.
David Ellison attends the Royal Film Performance and UK Premiere of Top Gun: Maverick at Leicester Square on 19 May 2022 in London, England. Photograph: Eamonn M McCormack/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures
Meanwhile, Nexstar Media, a major owner of local television stations, including over 30 ABC-affiliated stations, has been looking for FCC approval for a $6.2bn merger with Tegna, another broadcast media company. After Carr’s podcast interview, Nexstar announced it would preempt Kimmel’s show on their ABC-affiliated stations, meaning the show wouldn’t access millions of TV viewers in specific markets. (Nexstar executives “had no communication with the FCC or any government agency” before making the call, the firm has stressed.)
Christopher Anders, a senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, a leading defender of rights and freedoms enshrined in the US constitution, said Carr was using “the regulatory power the government has over media companies” through his comments.
“That is exactly what the first amendment is designed to stop: the government using its power to stifle speech,” Anders said. “And if there’s any speech that’s at the very heart of the first amendment, it would be the ability to criticize those in power, particularly the ability to criticize the president.”
Media giants have been “cowering to threats”, he added, ignoring the responsibility they have of defending free speech.
Iger, who previously considered running for president, has tried to steer clear of the culture wars that embroiled his predecessor, Bob Chapek. Now he faces intense scrutiny for overseeing a decision – suspending Kimmel – which critics say raises serious free speech concerns.
Michael Eisner, Disney’s former CEO, and Iger’s former boss at the firm, wrote on X on Friday: “The ‘suspending indefinitely’ of Jimmy Kimmel immediately after the Chairman of the FCC’s aggressive yet hollow threatening of the Disney Company is yet another example of out-of-control intimidation. Maybe the Constitution should have said, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest.’”
It is still unclear when – or if – Kimmel will come back on air. The companies in charge of US television, and the government agencies who regulate their dealings, loom large.
“Anyone that has the privilege of owning one of the major media networks, or owning the affiliate stations that carry those networks, ought to also have recognized the responsibility to protect the right of free speech,” said Anders. “Not just give up that right because an administration official is at least implicitly threatening to block their ability to carry out business.”
