Sinclair Reinstates Kimmel Show After Ban

The Sinclair Broadcast Group said Friday it will reinstate Jimmy Kimmel Live! on its ABC affiliates after a week-long blackout tied to the comedian's comments on the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Kimmel returned to air on Tuesday after a brief suspension by ABC, saying in his opening monologue that his comments may have been ill-timed. "It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man," he said.

By lifting the blackout, Sinclair viewers in cities like Washington, D.C., St. Louis and Seattle can watch Kimmel's show again. Sinclair said in a press release its discussions with ABC and parent company Disney are "ongoing and constructive" and that it had suggested measures to promote "accountability" within Disney. None of those measures have been adopted yet.

What happened? Kimmel landed in hot water after his Sept. 15 monologue on conservative firebrand Kirk's death. He said U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies were "desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" and trying to "score political points from it." He also likened Trump's reaction to the influencer's murder to "how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish." Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, appointed by Trump, threatened to revoke ABC's broadcast license in an interview with a conservative podcast. After Carr's comments, two broadcast companies, Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group, said they would stop airing the show on their dozens of ABC affiliates. ABC then pulled the show off the air.

Disney announced on Monday that Kimmel would return to air, but Sinclair and Nexstar maintained they would not air it. His return show on Tuesday drew record ratings, with 6.26 million people watching it live despite a quarter of ABC stations not airing it. Kimmel expressed regret about his earlier joke about Kirk, but also went after Trump and Carr for what he called "mob" censorship tactics. "Our leader celebrates people losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke," Kimmel said, adding that Trump openly rooting for people to lose their jobs was "un-American" and "dangerous".

Trump was openly disappointed in Kimmel's reinstatement. "I can't believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back," he wrote in a social media post.

The episode touched off nationwide debates about free speech, coinciding with online trends of people canceling Disney+ subscriptions and broader conversations about the boundaries of political commentary on late-night television.