Disney: Welcome back, Jimmy Kimmel!
Sinclair: Not so fast …
The return of Jimmy Kimmel will not be a universal experience, it appears. Not long after Disney announced that they would restart his Jimmy Kimmel Live! tomorrow night, one of ABC’s largest affiliate groups balked. Sinclair Broadcasting announced that they would run news programming in that slot instead:
Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming. Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return. pic.twitter.com/beGC6VID2x
— Sinclair, Inc. (@WeAreSinclair) September 22, 2025
Can they do that? CBS brought on a media expert who claimed that pre-empting the show could cause a breach of contract for their network affiliation. Left unspoken, though, is who that would harm the most — the network, or the affiliates?
Sinclair owns thirty-plus ABC affiliates. That’s a lot of dark time for advertisers, who are likely to get very annoyed very quickly at the way Disney is managing this situation. Disney could play hardball with Sinclair over the affiliate agreement, but they also need those stations for the rest of their programming. Given the hyper-politicized content Kimmel delivers, not to mention his refusal to correct material misrepresentations, Disney may not have the best luck in getting a judge to intervene either. Sinclair has the same speech rights that ABC, Disney, and Kimmel have, after all.
[more to come]
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