The Guardian

09/18/2025

Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show has been suspended “indefinitely” after the US government put pressure on broadcasters to crack down on the comedian, who had accused Donald Trump’s political movement of exploiting the killing of Charlie Kirk.

ABC, which Disney owns, announced on Wednesday night that it would remove Kimmel’s show from its schedule for the foreseeable future.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be preempted indefinitely,” an ABC spokesperson said in a statement. Pre-empting means ABC will broadcast another show in the slot instead.

The stunning move to remove one of the US’s most influential late-night TV talk shows has been criticised as part of a sweeping government attack on the free speech of critical voices in media, academia and business.

This has gathered pace in recents days after the Trump administration and its supporters launched a campaign to target anyone deemed not to have properly mourned Kirk, a prominent conservative commentator.

Kimmel is the second prominent US comedian in a few months to lose his position: in July, CBS announced it would be scrapping Kimmel’s fellow late-night satirist Stephen Colbert, who boasted the highest-rated late-night show on television and has also been critical of Trump.

Trump, who is sensitive to mockery from comedians, celebrated the suspension and called for other shows to be cancelled.

“Great News for America,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website. “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

The president has said that he also wants late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, who work for competitor NBC, to be removed from their positions.

The US-based free speech advocate group the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said the suspension was an example of another media outlet that had “withered under government pressure, ensuring that the administration will continue to extort and exact retribution on broadcasters and publishers who criticize it.

“We cannot be a country where late night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president. But until institutions grow a backbone and learn to resist government pressure, that is the country we are.”

ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel came just minutes after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, Nexstar Media, said it “strongly object[ed]” to his comments and would preempt any episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! set to air on the stations it owns across the country “for the foreseeable future”.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns more ABC stations than any other TV conglomerate including Nexstar, announced it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel’s timeslot on Friday.

Before ABC pulled Kimmel, Brendan Carr, the chair of the US’s top media regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, had urged local broadcasters to stop airing the show, saying they were “running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC” during an appearance on the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast.