Jimmy Kimmel is “absolutely f**king livid” over ABC’s decision to “indefinitely” pull Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show from the air. The decision was made after major broadcasters announced that they would not be airing the show in response to Kimmel’s advancement of a blatant lie in which he baselessly claimed the suspected assassin of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a Trump supporter.
The statement came shortly after broadcasting giant Nexstar Media Group, which owns and operates more than 200 television stations in 116 U.S. markets, announced Wednesday that it will be pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its affiliates.
“Nexstar’s owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network will preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the foreseeable future beginning with tonight’s show. Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets,” the company announced in a statement.
Nexstar’s vast media portfolio reaches about 39 percent of American households, primarily through affiliations with major networks like ABC, CBS, Fox and others. This was followed up by a similar announcement by Sinclair, which controls a significant portion of local television networks themselves.
According to a report from the Daily Mail, Kimmel is “absolutely f**king livid” over the network’s abrupt decision, which came just an hour before he was set to tape his next show. “Absolutely f–king livid,” one producer told the outlet about how Kimmel took the news, adding that the late-night host is currently meeting with the network.
“This is clearly the government overreaching. There’s no such thing as free speech in America, if the government can lean on companies to stop any content they don’t like.”
