I found an angle!
Jimmy Kimmel’s cancellation is having a reverberating effect on the industry. Just how much remains to be seen, but it has now reached the point where some creatives have decided to boycott working with Disney, which owns ABC, unless they reinstate Kimmel’s late-night show.
One of them is Damon Lindelof, creator of “Lost,” “The Leftovers,” and “Watchmen,” who just went on Instagram to announce his boycott of the mouse house.
I was shocked, saddened and infuriated by yesterday’s suspension and look forward to it being lifted soon. If it isn’t, I can’t in good conscience work for the company that imposed it […] if you’re about to fire up in my comments, just ask yourself if you know the difference between hate speech and a joke.
According to Puck’s Matt Belloni, other “major talent” are also considering similar boycotts in support of Kimmel. This story is far from over, and the outrage is spreading across Hollywood today—you just can’t escape it.
The general consensus in Tinseltown is that Kimmel lost his show because the MAGA crowd was outraged by his comments suggesting that the person who killed Charlie Kirk was “one of theirs.” This controversy drew in Nexstar, the FCC, and ultimately Disney.
CNN’s Jake Tapper seems to have the most compelling theory behind the ousting. The uproar over it has little to do with Kimmel himself and everything to do with corporate maneuvering.
Tapper reports that Nexstar, a media company that runs ABC-affiliated stations across the United States, has a crucial $6 billion merger deal pending with the FCC, and that Kimmel’s removal was very much an olive branch to the agency. Disney and ABC’s decision was less about censorship and more about damage control and optics.
There is a lot of money at stake, and Nexstar may have wanted to curry favor with the Trump administration and the FCC for potential financial benefit. Kimmel, whose show was losing money, got caught up in the crossfire and ultimately was the scapegoat. Collateral damage.
So, whether the Hollywood Disney boycott gains traction or not—and with SAG, DGA and WGA members currently protesting outside Disney’s Burbank headquarters—it might not make much of a difference, as the Mouse House, for once, seems powerless against Nexstar’s influence.
