AILSA CHANG, HOST:
"Jimmy Kimmel Live!" will return to ABC tomorrow night, but not on every ABC affiliate. Sinclair, one of the country's biggest owners of local TV stations, has announced that the ABC affiliates it owns will air news programming instead of Kimmel's show. ABC first pulled the show off the air last week when the host made remarks during his monologue about the person accused of shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Sinclair has said that it's continuing discussions with ABC and continues to evaluate the show's potential return. NPR's Mandalit del Barco has been following this story and joins us now from Los Angeles. Hi, Mandalit.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Hello.
CHANG: OK, so what is Disney saying now about Kimmel's return?
DEL BARCO: Yeah. So the Walt Disney Company sent out a statement today saying the company had made the decision to suspend the show's production, quote, "to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country." It said the decision was made because they felt some of the comments were, quote, "ill-timed and thus insensitive." Walt Disney wrote that they had made the decision to return the show on Tuesday after spending the last few days having thoughtful conversations with Kimmel.
CHANG: OK. Well, after ABC announced it was pulling Kimmel off air last week, there was this major outcry from people across the industry. Can you just talk about what that response looked like?
DEL BARCO: Well, the other late-night hosts - Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, even former host David Letterman - all lined up to support Kimmel. Here's David Letterman at The Atlantic Festival last week.
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DAVID LETTERMAN: We all see where this is going, correct? It's managed media. And it's no good. It's silly. It's ridiculous. And you can't go around firing somebody because you're fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian and criminal administration in the Oval Office.
DEL BARCO: You know, Whoopi Goldberg, one of the hosts of the ABC show "The View," criticized the decision. There was a moveon.org petition circulating to get the show back on. And on Hollywood Boulevard, outside the studio where "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" is taped, protesters talked about the suspension as a threat to free speech not just to Kimmel, but to all Americans.
You know, Disney was facing some major opposition. Even the former Disney head Michael Eisner, he weighed in on social media, pointing out that the timing of the decision to suspend Kimmel's show came just hours after the chair of the FCC, Brendan Carr, had threatened ABC affiliates. Carr suggested that they could face fines or have their licenses revoked if they continued airing Kimmel's show. And that's something Eisner called an aggressive yet hollow threatening, which he said was another example of, quote, "out of control intimidation."
And, Ailsa, what's notable is that a few conservatives also supported Jimmy Kimmel's free speech rights, and that included Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who talked about FCC's - Brendan Carr's threats to the affiliates.
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TED CRUZ: I got to say, that's right out of "Goodfellas." That's right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, nice bar you have here. It'd be a shame if something happened to it.
CHANG: OK. Well, how have others in the entertainment industry responded to Kimmel's suspension?
DEL BARCO: Yeah. You know, today, more than 400 entertainers announced they had signed an open letter condemning Disney's decision to suspend the show. That included actors Pedro Pascal, Selena Gomez, Lin-Manuel Miranda, singer Olivia Rodrigo. All of them have worked with Disney. Well, that letter was issued in collaboration with the ACLU, and it said that regardless of their political affiliation or whether they engage in politics or not, quote, "we all love our country. We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us." And, Ailsa, it's going to be very interesting to see what Jimmy Kimmel says when his show starts up again tomorrow.
CHANG: Very interesting. That is NPR's Mandalit del Barco. Thank you so much, Mandalit.
DEL BARCO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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