ABC’s decision to “indefinitely” suspend comedian Jimmy Kimmel has alarmed free speech advocates — but apparently not the self-described “chief advocate of broadcasters in our nation’s capital,” the National Association of Broadcasters.
At least not publicly.
As of Friday morning, the National Association of Broadcasters had not posted a statement on ABC’s decision to pull Kimmel off the air just hours after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened to pull the network’s license. A National Association of Broadcasters spokesperson did not respond to NOTUS’ requests for comment on the fallout.
Free speech advocates have warned that ABC’s move undermines the protections in the First Amendment.
Two powerful members of the National Association of Broadcasters, Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group, were at the forefront of the controversy, announcing they would preempt Kimmel for comments he made on air this week about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Carr urged Disney’s ABC to take action against Kimmel Wednesday. The late-night host implied during his Tuesday monologue that Charlie Kirk’s killer was tied to Trump’s MAGA movement, angering Republicans.
President Donald Trump congratulated the network on social media “for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”
NOTUS also contacted several broadcasters represented on the board of the National Association of Broadcasters — NBCUniversal, Paramount, Fox, Hearst, TelevisaUnivision, Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps, Urban One and Salem Media Group — for comment on Kimmel being pulled off air and the trade association’s silence, but received no response.
The National Association of Broadcasters has previously spoken out against threats to remove broadcast licenses over protected speech. Last October, the trade association’s president and CEO, Curtis LeGeyt, said, “The threat from any politician to revoke a broadcast license simply because they disagree with the station’s content undermines this basic freedom.”
But the National Association of Broadcasters has kept its head down as the president pushes to reshape the media landscape. The trade association has not issued any statements on other major battles between broadcasters and the Trump administration, including the $16 million settlement Paramount reached in July to get rid of a lawsuit Trump brought alleging former Vice President Kamala Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview was edited to help her 2024 presidential campaign.
Nexstar and Sinclair have been lobbying the administration to remove the media ownership cap with hopes of expanding their empires, and Nexstar last month announced plans to buy its competitor TEGNA in a $6.2 billion deal that would need to be blessed by the administration.
Andrew Alford, President of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, said Wednesday that it “strongly objects” to Kimmel’s “offensive and insensitive” comments. Sinclair Vice Chairman Jason Smith called Kimmel’s comments “inappropriate and deeply insensitive” and demanded he apologize to Kirk’s family.
“We believe broadcasters have a responsibility to educate and elevate respectful, constructive dialogue in our communities,” Smith added. Sinclair did not respond to requests for comment from NOTUS.
Nexstar sent NOTUS a statement issued Thursday saying the decision to preempt Kimmel “was made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision.”
Free speech advocates have sounded the alarm over Kimmel’s suspension. Christopher Anders, director of the Democracy and Technology Division at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the move “beyond McCarthyism.”
“Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke. The Trump administration’s actions, paired with ABC’s capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms,” Anders said in a press release.
Carr told Fox News on Thursday that the decision to pull Kimmel is “not the last shoe to drop” and lauded a “massive shift” in the media landscape. Trump rankled Kimmel for having “worse ratings” than Stephen Colbert, whose late show will sunset at the end of this year, and took shots at two other late-night hosts who have poked fun at the president, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
NBCUniversal did not respond to requests to comment on Trump’s call to cancel the comedians.
David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech, told NOTUS that “Carr’s threats clearly violate the First Amendment and break his oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution.’”
“The government has no business regulating late-night comedians for jokes that don’t break the law,” Keating said. “Similar but hidden pressures were applied by the Biden Administration on social media companies to censor speakers. Government pressure to censor is a threat to free speech, regardless of who is in power.”
Late-night talk show hosts have since taken to the airwaves to support Kimmel and poke fun at the president — and say they’re not backing down. Meyers invoked the administration’s “crackdown on free speech” and alluded to the threat at the top of his show Thursday evening.
“Completely unrelated, I just want to say before we get started here, that I have always admired and respected Mr. Trump. I’ve always believed he was — no, no, no,” Meyers said as the audience laughed at his sarcastic tone, “a visionary, an innovator, a great president, an even better golfer, and if you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI.”
Meyers closed out his monologue with a serious call to uphold the free speech protections enshrined in the First Amendment.
“This is a big moment in our democracy, and we must all stand up for the principles of free expression,” Meyers later said. “There’s a reason free speech is in the very first First Amendment, it stands above all others.”