Sinclair and Nexstar to reinstate Kimmel on ABC stations

Jimmy Kimmel Live! will now appear again on all ABC channels.

Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group announced on Friday they will bring the show back to their ABC affiliates after a week-long ban.

The two companies, which carry dozens of ABC stations across the US, pulled the programme over comments Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk’s death.

Sinclair decided to reinstate the late-night talk show after “thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders”.

Kimmel was also briefly suspended from all of ABC, and returned to the network on Tuesday.

“It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” he said in his opening monologue that night.

By lifting the blackout, Sinclair and Nexstar viewers in cities like Washington, DC, Nashville, New Orleans and Seattle can now watch Kimmel’s show again.

Sinclair said in a press release its discussions with ABC and parent company Disney are “ongoing and constructive”. The media conglomerate said it had suggested measures to promote “accountability” within Disney.

None of those measures have been adopted yet, it said.

Nexstar also cited positive discussions with ABC, saying in a press release that they “appreciate their constructive approach to addressing our concerns”. The company said it is “committed to protecting the First Amendment”.

Kimmel landed in hot water after his 15 September monologue on conservative firebrand Kirk’s death.

He said US 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 (FCC) chair Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Trump, threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast licence during an interview with a conservative podcast.

After Carr’s comments, Sinclair and Nexstar said they would stop airing the show on their dozens of ABC affiliates.

ABC then pulled the show off the air entirely.

This triggered nationwide debates about free speech, including online trends of people canceling their Disney+ subscriptions.

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.