Sept. 23 (UPI) — Nexstar Media Group will not air “Jimmy Kimmel, Live!” and joined the Sinclair Broadcast Group in pre-empting the ABC talk show when it is scheduled to resume on Tuesday.
Nexstar officials announced their decision a day after Sinclair said it also would pre-empt Kimmel’s show due to his falsely claiming the alleged shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a MAGA supporter.
“We made a decision last week to pre-empt ‘Jimmy Kimmel, Live!’ following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s’ ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse,” Nexstar officials said in a news release, as reported by NBC News.
“We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.”
Nexstar and Sinclair own a combined total of nearly 70 local stations that account for nearly a fourth of ABC stations, according to The New York Times.
Nexstar and Sinclair intend to air news programming instead of Kimmel’s talk show.
Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., wrote a letter to Nexstar Media Group executives that “demands answers” regarding why they are pre-empting “Jimmy Kimmel, Live!” on affiliate stations.
“The public owns the airwaves — not the FCC chairman, not [President] Donald Trump and not Nexstar,” McGovern said Monday in a press release.
“Local TV stations have a responsibility to serve the public interest — not advance political vendettas against those who express opinions the government doesn’t like,” he continued.
“Using the threat of license revocation to strong-arm a network into silencing a comedian is not only corrupt — it’s almost certainly unconstitutional.”
During his opening monologue on Sept. 15, Kimmel said, “The MAGA gang desperately [is] trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
ABC and its owner, the Walt Disney Corp., suspended his show indefinitely the next day but announced it would resume Tuesday night.