Disney and American broadcaster ABC have announced they’ll be reinstating the late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” Disney said in a statement released today.
“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”
“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.” Disney executives said of their reversal.
The network announced the show would be “indefinitely suspended” just a week ago, a move that was seen as capitulation to threats from the Trump administration.
The show was pulled from the airwaves after affiliate broadcasters threatened to cut the show from their schedules, and the head of the Federal Communications Commission went on a podcast calling for the show to be axed.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said Brendan Carr head of the FCC.
The calls came after Kimmel was criticised for comments he made about the death of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, and suggestions that the administration was capitalising on Kirk’s death.
The TV show host said that “many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalise on the murder of Charlie Kirk” and that “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them”.
Taking the show off the airwaves saw waves of people cancelling their subscriptions to Disney’s streaming platform, not just in the USA but across the globe. There were also calls for people to boycott the company’s theme parks and cruise lines.
Overnight over 400 celebrities also publicly criticised the decision saying it was an assault on free speech and media independence. Jennifer Aniston, Robert De Niro, Martin Short, Natalie Portman, Pedro Pascal and Maya Rudolph were among the stars putting their name to the open letter.
While ABC have quickly reinstated the show, one of its major affiliate groups Sinclair have announced they won’t be running the show on their station. The company had previously demanded the host make a formal apology and personally make a large donation to Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point organisation and to his family.
