Jimmy Kimmel may have crossed a line, but America has crossed a bigger one

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At first glance, the move by the American TV network ABC to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the airwaves might seem straightforward enough. The late-night chat show host said a bad thing, some would argue, and he paid the price.

But as ever in the crazy, confusing, contradictory world of Donald Trump’s America, it’s much more complicated than that.

What’s at stake here is mergers, money, and a concerted effort to strangle the media to such a point that it no longer has the will or the resources to report or comment on the president and his MAGA associates. And that is something that should strike fear into anyone who still holds a shred of hope for Western democracy.

But first, let’s look at what Kimmel actually said.

In his opening monologue on Monday night, the four-time Oscar host and long-term Trump critic observed of accused assassin Tyler Robinson that “we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them”.

Some took that as an implicit endorsement of a sketchy theory that Robinson was a bad-faith actor who killed the right-wing Kirk for not being right-wing enough. That view not only pre-empts the investigation into the killing and the trial that will follow, it sits uneasily with what little information has begun to emerge about Robinson and his politics.

While he characterised his father as “pretty diehard MAGA” in alleged texts to his transgender lover, Robinson had, according to his mother, “become more political and begun to lean more to the left” over the past year.

At any rate, given the uncertainty around his motivation, it was unwise at the least and arguably inflammatory of Kimmel to lean into that line. Certainly, that is how Nexstar, a regional broadcaster that takes ABC content under licence, interpreted it.

Announcing its decision to dump Kimmel’s show immediately, Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, described the comedian’s comments as “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located.”

Nexstar would replace his show with alternative content, Alford said, “in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue”.

Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, there is much to be said for a call for respectful, constructive dialogue.

However, it is worth noting Nexstar is currently in the process of acquiring a rival broadcaster, TEGNA, for $US6.2 billion ($9.4 billion). That deal needs to be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, the regulator headed by Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee and close ally.

That would be the same Brendan Carr who contributed to the controversial Project 2025 blueprint, many of whose recommendations around the dismantling of government regulations and protections for minorities and the environment have been (unofficially) implemented in Trump’s second term. The same Brendan Carr who has spearheaded investigations into a number of America’s media companies – including NPR, PBS, Comcast (owner of NBC) and CBS – over its Trump-related reporting. The same Brendan Carr who claimed on X in July that “the partisan left’s ritualistic wailing and gnashing of teeth over [the axing of Stephen] Colbert is quite revealing”.

Stephen Colbert accepting the Emmy Award this week for outstanding talk series, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

At the time he posted that, the FCC was determining whether to grant approval to the proposed merger between Paramount (owner of CBS) and Skydance, owned by David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison (by some accounts the richest person in the world, and a strong Trump ally).

On July 25, a week after CBS announced it was axing The Late Show With Stephen Colbert from May 2026, the merger was approved.

It is impossible to prove causal links between these things, but there is a clear pattern in Trump’s relationship with the media. Sow distrust, claim deceit, block or approve, and sue. All designed to weaken the fourth estate and reduce its ability to keep the bastards honest.

Trump sued Meta for suspending his social media accounts over what it deemed his incitement of the riots in Washington on January 6, 2021. In February this year, the company settled for $25 million.

Trump sued over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that he alleged had been “unfairly edited” to make her look better than him. Though the suit was widely considered frivolous, Paramount (owner of broadcaster CBS) settled for $16 million (a fraction of the $20 billion Trump had sought). That was three weeks before the merger with Skydance was approved.

In July, Trump sued The Wall Street Journal for $10 billion over its reporting of a birthday card he had sent to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. This week, Trump sued The New York Times for $15 billion, alleging he had been defamed in a number of articles and a book that claimed he was “unfit for office”.

Trump has repeatedly decried legitimate reporting as “fake news” and characterised the news media as “the enemy of the people”. He has picked fights with and banned respected reporters from White House media rooms, and hand-picked the friendly outlets with whom he chooses to share information in the knowledge it will be disseminated with a minimum of scrutiny.

These are all assaults on the ability of the media to report on or voice opinions about the leader of what once held itself up as the world’s shining example of democracy. They are the moves of an autocrat determined to eradicate accountability. Investigative reporting, interviews, commentary and even comedy are all in Trump’s sights.

In his monologue this week, Kimmel also took aim at Trump’s tone-deaf response to questions about how he was holding up in the wake of the murder of Kirk, a supposedly “close friend”.

‘Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED’

US president Donald Trump

The host cut to a clip in which the president responded by talking about the construction of a ballroom at the White House. To prove it wasn’t a mere aberration, he showed a second clip, of an interview on Fox News, in which Trump did the same.

“This is not how an adult grieves the death of someone he called a friend,” Kimmel said. “This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”

When ABC (which is owned by Disney) announced it was pulling Kimmel’s show from the airwaves “indefinitely” on Wednesday (US time), Trump gloated. “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED,” he wrote on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns and through which he issues most of his communications.

“Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy [Fallon] and Seth [Meyers], two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”

ABC pulling Kimmel is a blow against free speech, democracy, and media diversity. But it’s also a simple numbers game.

Late-night TV is expensive to produce, and doesn’t have the viewership it once did. Advertising still matters to linear (free-to-air) TV, but not as much as licensing. In its latest annual report, for FY 2023-24, ABC’s parent company Disney declared advertising revenue of $U3.676 billion for its linear networks. Affiliate fees brought in $US6.872 billion (US$5.826 domestically). Unhappy affiliates hit Disney where it hurts most, the bottom line. So too does the threat of legal action from the most litigious president in American history.

Dropping Kimmel is a big move. But for a media increasingly cowed into submission, not dropping him might have amounted to an even bigger one.