Jimmy Kimmel Show to Return on Tuesday, Disney Says

Jimmy Kimmel attends the 28th Annual UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation’s “Taste For A Cure” event at Beverly Wilshire. (Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation)

Key Points

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• Walt Disney said Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show will resume Tuesday night.
• The show was suspended after Kimmel made comments about the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.
• Nexstar and Sinclair said they would not air the show; FCC Chair Carr suggested intervention.

The Jimmy Kimmel late night show will resume starting Tuesday night, ABC’s parent company Walt Disney said in a press release Monday.

“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’s statement begins.

“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,” it added.

Kimmel’s show was suspended after pressure from local station owners and Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr. The station owners, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair , both said they would not air it after Kimmel made comments about the fatal shooting of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. Nexstar owns or operates around 30 local ABC stations, while Sinclair runs 38.

Carr suggested that the FCC would step in if ABC didn’t take action. “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said last week. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” he told podcaster Benny Johnson in an episode of the Benny Show that ran just hours before ABC suspended Kimmel’s show.

The FCC, Nexstar, and Sinclair didn’t immediately reply to Barron’s request for comment.

Disney stock ticked up 0.4% to $112.98 in premarket trading on Tuesday, having closed 1% lower the previous session. Futures tracking the S&P 500 were flat.

Write to Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com